'  I  / 


THE  THIRD  WINDOW 


BY 

ANNE  DOUGLAS  SEDGWICK 
(MRS.  BASIL  DE  SELINCOURT) 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

The  Riverside  Press  Cambridge 

1920 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY  ANNK  DOUGLAS  DE  SELINCOURT 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 


THE  THIRD  WINDOW 


. 

I  LOVE  this  window,"  said  Antonia,  walking  down 
the  drawing-room;  "and  this  one.  They  both 
look  over  the  moors,  you  see.  This  view  is  even 
lovelier."  She  stopped  at  the  end  of  the  long  room, 
and  the  young  man  with  the  pale  face  and  the  limping 
step  followed  and  looked  out  of  the  third  window 
with  her.  "But  —  I  don't  know  why  —  I  hate  it.  I 
wish  it  were  n't  here." 

Captain  Saltonhall  looked  out  and  said  nothing. 

"I  wonder  if  you  see  what  I  mean,"  said  Antonia. 

"No;  I  don't.  I  like  it."  The  young  man  spoke 
gently  and  with  something  of  a  drawl,  unimpressed, 
apparently,  by  her  antipathy  and  putting  up  the 
back  of  a  placid  forefinger  to  stroke  along  the  edge  of 
his  moustache. 

"One  gets  the  hills,  peaceful  and  silvery;  one  gets 
the  walled  garden  and  the  cedar,"  she  enumerated. 
[3  ] 


*...  ;  TtTE'  THIRD   WINDOW 

'*  The  little  "ikmtl"  with"  its  fountain  is  as  serene  as  a 
happy  dream.  It 's  all  like  a  happy  dream.  Yet  —  I 
wish  there  were  n't  this  window  here." 

"You  could  wall  it  up  if  you  don't  like  it,"  Captain 
Saltonhall  suggested,  his  eyes,  as  he  stood  behind  her, 
turning  from  the  walled  garden  beneath  to  fix  them 
selves  with  a  rather  sad  attentiveness  upon  the  head 
of  the  young  woman.  Her  dark  hair  was  near  him  and 
the  curve  of  her  cheek;  he  thought  that  he  felt  against 
his  the  warmth  of  her  shoulder  in  its  thin  black  dress. 

She  looked  out,  motionless,  for  a  little  while;  then, 
turning  suddenly,  as  if  with  impatience  of  her 
thoughts,  found  him  so  near,  and  his  eyes  on  hers. 
She,  too,  was  pale  and  tall;  but  all  in  her  was  soft, 
splendid,  and  almost  opulent,  while  he  was  sharp- 
edged  and  wasted.  He  looked  much  the  older,  though 
they  were  of  the  same  age;  both,  indeed,  were  very 
young. 

He  did  not  move  away  as  she  faced  him  nor  did  his 

look  alter.  Sad  and  attentive,  it  merely  remained 

attached  upon  her,  and  if  he  felt  any  nervousness  it 

showed  itself  only  in  the  slight  gesture  of  his  fore- 

[4  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

finger  passing  meditatively  along  the  edge  of  his 
moustache.  It  was  she  who  spoke.  "Well,  Be  vis?" 
she  said  gravely.  Her  look  asked:  "Have  you  any 
thing  to  tell  me?" 

"Well,  Tony,"  he  returned.  He  had,  apparently, 
nothing  to  say. 

She  studied  him  for  a  moment  longer,  and  then, 
with  an  added  impatience  —  if  anything  so  soft  could 
so  be  called  —  walking  away  to  an  easy-chair  before 
the  fire,  she  said, "  You  think  me  very  silly,  I  suppose." 

"Silly?  Why?" 

"Because  of  the  window.  My  hating  it." 

He  came  and  leaned  on  the  back  of  her  chair,  look 
ing  across  her  head  up  at  the  mantelpiece  where  a  row 
of  white  fritillaries  stood  in  tall  crystal  glasses,  their 
reflections  showing  as  if  through  a  film  of  sea-water 
in  the  ancient  mirror  behind  them.  There  had  been 
white  fritillaries  among  the  flagged  paths  of  the 
walled  garden,  and,  finding  them  again,  he  recog 
nized  that  they  had  been  the  only  things  he  had  felt 
uncanny  there;  for  he  had  always  felt  them  wraith- 
like  flowers. 

[5  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"I  think  you'd  better  wall  it  up,  quite  seriously,  if 
you  really  hate  it."  He  repeated  his  former  sugges 
tion.  "  It  would  rather  spoil  the  room.  But  I  would  n't, 
if  I  were  you,  live  with  a  discomfort  like  that  —  if 
it's  really  a  discomfort." 

The  young  woman  beneath  him  laughed,  a  little 
sadly,  if  lightly.  "How  you  suspect  me." 

"Of  what,  pray?" 

"Oh  —  of  unconscious  humbug;  of  unconscious 
posing.  Of  induced  emotions  generally.  It's  always 
been  the  same." 

"I  rather  like  induced  emotions  in  you,"  said 
Captain  Saltonhall.  "They  suit  you.  They  are  like 
the  colour  of  a  pomegranate  or  the  taste  of  a  mulberry 
or  the  smell  of  a  branch  of  flowering  hawthorn;  some 
thing  rich,  thick,  and  pleasingly  oppressive." 

"Thanks.  I  don't  take  it  as  a  compliment." 

"I  don't  mean  it  as  one.  I  merely  said  I  liked  it  in 
you;  and  if  I  do  it's  only  because  I'm  in  love  with 
you." 

He  lowered  his  eyes  now  from  the  fritillaries  to 
watch  the  very  faint  colour  that  rose,  very  slowly,  in 
[  6  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

her  cheek.  It  could  hardly  be  called  a  response.  It  was 
merely  an  awareness.  And  after  a  moment  she  said, 
still  with  her  soft  impatience:  "Do  come  and  sit 
where  I  can  see  you.  It 's  bad  for  your  leg  to  stand  too 
long,  I'm  sure." 

He  obeyed  her,  limping  to  a  chair  on  the  opposite 
side  of  the  fireplace,  laying  his  hands  on  either  arm  as 
he  lowered  himself  with  some  little  awkwardness.  He 
was  not  yet  accustomed  to  the  complicated  mechan 
ical  apparatus,  the  artificial  leg,  that,  always,  he  felt 
hang  so  heavily  about  his  thigh. 

Antonia  Wellwood's  dark  eyes  watched  him,  with 
solicitude,  it  seemed,  rather  than  tenderness;  though 
indeed  their  very  shape  —  the  outer  corners  droop 
ing,  a  line  of  white  showing  under  the  full  iris  —  ex 
pressed  a  melancholy  so  sweet  that  their  most  casual 
glance  seemed  to  convey  tenderness. 

The  young  people  sat  then  for  a  little  while  in 
silence.  Though  the  spring  day  was  sunny,  it  was 
sharp.  On  a  bed  of  ashes  the  log-fire  burned  softly  and 
clearly.  The  silvery  light  of  the  high,  Northern  sky 
shone  along  the  polished  floor. 
[7] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

The  room  was  modern,  like  the  house,  and  imaged 
carefully,  but  not  too  carefully  for  ease,  eighteenth- 
century  austerities  and  graces.  The  walls  were  pan 
elled  in  white;  the  chintzes  were  striped  in  white  and 
citron-colour.  In  spite  of  bowls  of  flowers,  books  and 
magazines,  a  half-knit  sock  here,  its  needles  trans 
fixing  the  ball  of  heather-coloured  wool,  and  the 
embroidery  there,  with  tangled  skeins,  it  was  an  im 
personal  room,  an  object  calmly  and  confidently 
awaiting  appraisal  rather  than  a  long-memoried 
presence,  making  beauty  forgotten  in  significance.  It 
was  not  a  room  expressive  of  the  young  woman 
sunken  in  the  deep  chair.  Appointed  elaborately  as 
she  was,  in  her  dense  or  transparent  blacks,  her 
crossed  feet  in  their  narrow  buckled  shoes  stretched 
before  her,  her  hands  lying  along  the  white  and 
citron  chintz,  she  was  neither  disciplined  nor 
austere.  Brooding,  melancholy,  restless,  and  with  a 
latent  exasperation,  her  eyes  dwelt  on  the  flames 
and  her  wide,  small  lips  puckered  themselves  at  mo 
ments  as  if  with  the  bitterness  of  unshed  tears. 

She  did  not  move  for  a  long  time,  nor  did  the  young 
[  8  1 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

man  who,  his  elbows  propped,  rested  his  chin  on  the 
backs  of  interlaced  hands  and  surveyed  her  over 
them.  He  noted  her,  as  he  had  done  for  many  months 
now;  just  as,  for  months  before  that,  he  had,  in 
France,  dreamed  over  her;  not  her  mystery;  her 
clouded,  drifting  quality;  he  had  perhaps  got  round 
that  or  perhaps  given  it  up,  sometimes  he  did  not 
himself  know  which;  but  the  pictorial  incidents  of  her 
appearance;  the  black  velvet  bow  in  the  gauze  upon 
her  breast;  the  heavy  pins  of  tortoise-shell  that  held 
up  her  great  tresses;  the  odd,  dusky  mark  on  her  eye 
lids  that  looked  like  the  freaking  of  a  lovely  else  un 
blemished  fruit;  her  pale  cheek;  her  childlike  fore 
head;  her  hand,  beautiful  and  indolent,  with  its 
wedding-ring.  He  dwelt  on  all  these  appearances  with 
a  still  absorption,  and  whether  with  more  delight  or 
irony  he  could  not  have  told;  but  it  was  an  irony  at 
his  own  expense,  not  at  hers;  for  he  had  always  been  a 
young  man  aloof  from  appearances,  tolerant  yet  con 
temptuous  of  their  appeal,  and  he  knew  that  they 
absorbed  him  now  because  he  was  in  love  with  her, 
and  he  sometimes  even  wondered  if  he  was  in  love 
[9  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

with  her  because  of  them.  He  did  not,  however, 
wonder  much.  Before  the  war  he  would  have  com 
puted,  analyzed,  perhaps  done  away  with  his  passion 
with  the  fretting  of  over-acute  thought.  That  sort  of 
vitality,  the  analytic,  destructive  sort,  had  been,  he 
imagined,  bled,  beaten,  and  cut  out  of  him.  He  was 
now  a  wraith,  a  wreck  of  his  former  self,  fit  only  for 
contemplation  and  acceptance.  She  was  enough  for 
him  now,  just  as  she  was;  ignorant,  for  all  her  ac 
complishment;  indolent  and  self-absorbed;  and  she 
could  more  than  satisfy  him.  The  old  acuteness  re 
mained,  but  it  no  longer  tormented.  He  was  aware 
of  everything  and  all  he  asked  was  to  possess  it  all. 
That,  however,  did  n't  mean  that  he  pretended  any 
thing.  If  he  had  no  illusions  and  asked  for  none,  he 
did  not  let  her  think  he  had  them. 

"When  did  you  begin  to  know  you  were  in  love 
with  me?"  she  said  at  last,  and  now,  in  spite  of  the 
tearful  pucker  in  her  lips  and  liquid  fulness  of  her 
eyes,  he  knew  that  the  theme  was  the  one  to  which 
she  had  intended  to  bring  him.  But  it  had  n't  been 
deviously;  for  all  her  shifting  shadows  and  eddies  she 
[  10  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

was  one  of  the  straightest  creatures  he  had  ever 
known.  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  was  that  quality  in  her, 
rather  than  the  appearances,  that  accounted  for  his 
state. 

"How  long?  Since  I've  loved  you?  Oh  —  since 
before  Malcolm's  death,  I  'm  afraid." 

It  was  what  she  had  feared;  he  saw  that,  and  that 
it  hurt  her.  Yet  it  pleased  her,  too. 

"I  never  guessed,"  she  said. 

He  laughed.  "Rather  not!  How  could  you  have 
guessed?" 

"Women  do  —  these  things." 

"Perhaps  you  are  less  clever  than  other  women, 
then,  or  I  more  clever  than  other  men.' 

"I  don't  think  I'm  less  clever  than  other  women," 
said  Antonia,  and  a  smile  just  touched  her  lips; 
another  evidence  of  that  straightness  in  her.  She  was 
willing  to  smile,  even  though  smiling  might  be  mis 
understood.  Yes,  more  than  anything,  perhaps,  it  was 
her  genuineness  he  cherished. 

"You  're  cleverer  than  most,"  he  assured  her.  "Far. 
But  I'm  cleverer  than  most  men." 

[  11  j 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

"We  are  a  wonderful  pair!"  she  exclaimed,  and  he 
agreed:  "We  are  indeed." 

"And  why  was  it? "  she  went  on,  more  happily  now, 
for,  another  precious  point,  and  it  seemed  more  than 
anything  else  to  pair  them,  they  were  happy  with 
each  other.  Apart  from  her  woman's  craving  to  feel 
her  power  over  him,  apart  from  his  definitely  amo 
rous  condition,  they  were  comrades,  and  it  crossed 
his  mind,  oddly,  at  the  moment  of  thinking  it,  that 
this  could  not  have  been  said  of  Antonia  and  Mal 
colm.  Their  relation  had  been  that,  specially,  of  man 
and  woman,  lover  and  beloved.  He  doubted,  really, 
whether  Antonia  would  have  cared  much  about 
Malcolm  had  he  not  been  a  man  and  a  lover.  Whereas, 
had  he  himself  been  another  woman,  Antonia,  he 
felt  sure,  would  have  made  a  friend  of  him.  These 
reflections  took  him  far  from  her  question,  and  before 
the  vague  musing  of  his  look  she  repeated  it  in  an 
altered  form.  "Why  did  you  begin  —  after  having 
known  me  so  long  without?" 

"Ah,  that  I  can't  tell.  Perhaps  it  did  n't  begin. 
Perhaps  it  was  always  there.  I  knew  it  for  the  first 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

time  when  I  was  ordered  to  France;  that  day  I  came 
to  say  good-bye  to  you  and  Malcolm  in  London  — 
before  he  went." 

The  name  of  her  dead  husband  brought  the  cloud 
about  her  again.  "Oh,  yes,"  she  murmured.  "I  re 
member  that  day.  I  was  horribly  frightened  over  the 
war.  I  had  a  presentiment.  I  knew  he  was  going  to 
volunteer." 

"It  could  hardly  have  been  a  presentiment.  He 
evidently  would." 

She  showed  no  resentment  for  his  clipping  of  her 
dark  pinions.  It  was  as  if  she  still  hovered  on  them  as 
she  said:  "Of  course.  I  mean  presentiment  of  what 
came  after  that.  What  had  to  come.  Don't  you  believe 
in  Fate,  Be  vis?  Perhaps  it  was  that  you  felt  in  me. 
You  had  never  seen  me  suffering  before." 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  young  man,  sceptically  if 
kindly.  "However,  I  don't  want  to  talk  about  it,"  he 
added.  "That  is,  unless  you  do,  very  much." 

She  looked  up  at  him,  still  unresentful,  but  now  a 
little  ironic,  though  irony  was  not  her  note.  "You  are 
an  odd  lover,  Bevis." 

[13] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"Ami?" 

"You  don't  like  declaring  your  love." 

"I  have  declared  it." 

"You  don't  like  talking  about  it." 

"Why  should  I?  Unless  you'll  talk  about  yours, 
too.  What  you  mean,  I  suppose,  is  that  you  miss 
pleading  and  passion  in  me  and  would  like  to  see 
them  displayed.  I  quite  understand  that  in  you.  Per 
haps  it 's  what 's  needed  to  bring  you  round.  But  I  'm 
not  that  sort  of  person.  I  could  n't  do  it  naturally.  I 
think,  though  you  miss  it  in  me,  you  'd  not  really  find 
it  natural,  either.  We're  too  clever,  too  civilized,  I 
suppose." 

"I  suppose  we  are,"  she  conceded,  though  a  little 
wistfully.  "I  don't  exactly  miss  it.  I  know  it's  there. 
It's  merely  that  I'd  like  you  to  talk  about  it,  even  if 
you  don't  display  it." 

"I'm  glad  you  recognize  that  it's  there,"  said  the 
young  man. 

"Shall  I  tell  you  what  I  really  feel  about  the  win 
dow?  "  Antonia  now  asked.  Her  back  was  to  it  as  she 
sat,  and  its  great  cedar,  cutting  against  the  pale  blue 
[  14  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

sky,  made  a  distant  background  to  her  head.  Like 
a  Renaissance  portrait,  sombre,  serene,  splendid  in 
tone,  the  picture  she  made  was  before  him;  an  alle 
gorical  figure  of  poetry,  youth  or  melancholy,  with  its 
dwelling  eyes  and  spacings  dark  and  pale.  He  was 
often  to  see  her  afterwards  as  she  then  looked  across 
at  him. 

"We  never  lived  at  Wyndwards,  you  know,  Mal 
colm  and  I,"  she  said,  "though  Malcolm,  of  course, 
spent  his  life  here  until  we  married.  But  we  visited 
his  mother,  often,  and  I  never  thought  about  the 
window  then.  It  was  only  after  Malcolm's  death,  and 
hers;  when  I  stayed  here  alone  for  the  first  time;  a 
year  ago.  Alone  except  for  Cicely." 

"  Miss  Latimer  has  always  lived  here,  has  n't 
she?"  Captain  Saltonhall  inquired. 

"Yes.  But  she  is  so  much  a  part  of  it  that  it  was 
like  being  alone.  I  used  to  walk  up  and  down  here 
and  look  out.  Just  a  year  ago  it  was;  spring  like  this. 
And,  as  I  walked,  I  found  that  while  I  loved  looking 
out  of  the  front  windows,  I  shrank,  I  could  n't  tell 
why,  from  looking  out  of  the  third;  the  end  one." 
[  15  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

Antonia  turned  herself  still  farther  in  her  chair, 
leaning  both  elbows  on  the  wide  arm.  "I  shrank  from 
it,  yet  it  drew  me,  too.  And  when  I  yielded,  and 
looked,  I  felt  frightened.  And  one  day  it  came  over 
me,  as  I  looked  out,  that  what  I  feared  was  that  I 
should  see  Malcolm  standing  there,  beside  the  foun 
tain."  Her  voice  had  dropped.  Her  eyes  dwelt  on  him, 
full  of  their  genuine  distress. 

"Ah,  I  see."  Captain  Saltonhall  nodded.  "That 
was  very  natural,  I  think." 

"Why  natural?" 

"He  had  died  so  shortly  before.  Your  thoughts 
were  full  of  him.  The  place  is  full  of  him  —  with  all 
the  years  he  lived  here." 

She  listened  to  his  alleviations,  finding  them, 
apparently,  irrelevant.  "But  why  the  third  window? 
Why  only  that  one?  Why  not  the  others?  He  is  more 
on  the  moors  than  in  the  flagged  garden." 

"A  flagged  garden  with  a  fountain  and  a  cedar  tree 
is  obviously  a  more  suitable  place  for  a  ghost  than 
the  moors  would  be.' 

"You  do  believe  in  ghosts  and  apparitions,  then?" 
[  16  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"I  don't  know  whether  I  believe  in  them  or  not. 
There  may  be  appearances  we  can't  account  for. 
There 's  a  good  deal  of  evidence  for  them.  But  I  don't 
believe  they  embody  any  consciousness.  It 's  far  more 
likely,  from  what  I've  read,  that  they  are  a  kind  of 
photograph  of  some  past  emotion." 

"But,  Be  vis,  would  n't  it  frighten  you  dreadfully 
to  see  one,  whatever  it  was?" 

"Perhaps.  Yes.  It  might  be  very  nasty,"  he  agreed. 

"Yet  if  I  could  be  sure  that  it  embodied  conscious 
ness  it  might  frighten  me,  but  it  would  mean  such 
rapture,  too.  I  should  know  then  that  Malcolm  had 
survived  death  and  still  thought  of  me." 

"Yes.  I  see,"  Captain  Saltonhall  murmured,  rather 
awkwardly.  "Yes.  Of  course.  That  would  be  a  great 
comfort  to  you." 

"Comfort  hardly  expresses  it,  Bevis." 

Silence  fell  between  them  for  a  little  while,  and 
when  the  young  man  next  spoke  it  was  still  with  the 
slight  awkwardness.  "But  then,  if  that's  what  you 
need,  you  ought  to  like  the  third  window  and  the 
chance  you  feel  it  gives  you." 
[17  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

She  heaved  a  weary,  exasperated  sigh,  stretching 
out  in  her  chair,  stretching  up  her  arms,  letting  them 
fall  again  along  her  sides,  while,  sunken,  extended, 
she  seemed  to  abandon  to  him  the  avowal  of  her  own 
perplexity  and  extravagance.  "I  don't  know  what  I 
want.  I  don't  know  what  I  fear.  I  don't  know  any 
thing,"  she  said. 

A  step  came  outside  at  this  point  and,  the  door 
opening,  there  entered  a  woman,  older  than  the  other 
two,  though  still  not  old,  with  a  bleached  face  and 
bleached  hair;  a  straight,  old-fashioned  little  fringe 
showing  under  her  hat.  She  paused  at  once  on  the 
threshold.  "Am  I  interrupting?"  she  asked.  Her 
voice  was  curiously  high;  not  sharp  or  shrill;  but  high 
and  reedy,  like  a  child's, 

"No.  Not  a  bit.  Of  course  not.  Come  in,  Cicely," 
said  Antonia  sadly.  She  did  not  turn  her  eyes  on  the 
newcomer,  but  Captain  Saltonhall  did  so,  watching 
her  as  she  crossed  the  room  with  her  basket  of  spring 
flowers.  She  was  dressed  in  weather-beaten  mourn 
ing,  with  a  knitted  black  silk  scarf  thrown  back  from 
her  open  jacket.  The  basket  she  carried  was  full  of 
[  18  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

primroses  and  windflowers,  and,  setting  it  down  on  a 
distant  table,  she  began  to  fill  the  bowls  and  vases 
that  she  had  evidently  placed  there  in  readiness.  Her 
entry  and  her  presence,  which  might  be  prolonged, 
were,  he  felt,  very  inopportune;  yet  Antonia  showed 
no  impatience  of  the  interruption.  Perhaps,  indeed, 
Miss  Latimer's  presence  was  a  relief  to  her,  since  she 
had  really  no  answer  to  give  to  his  rather  arid  and 
even  provocative  logic.  It  had  been  a  little  vicious  of 
him  to  put  it  to  her  like  that;  but  there  was,  he  recog 
nized,  an  instinct  in  him  to  show  her  that  her  per 
plexities  were  irrelevant  and  even  absurd  rather  than 
to  argue  with  them.  She  remained  silent  and  sunken 
in  her  chair,  slowly  twisting  her  wedding-ring  round 
and  round  her  finger,  and  it  must  be  apparent  to 
Miss  Latimer  that  she  had  interrupted  an  intimate 
conversation.  He  felt  this  to  be  a  little  unfortunate; 
why,  he  could  not  quite  have  said. 

Miss  Latimer,  whom  he  had  seen  for  the  first  time 

the  night  before,  at  dinner,  after  his  late  arrival,  had 

not  endeared  herself  to  him.  He  had  not  liked  her 

stillness,  nor  her  whiteness,  nor  her  sudden  piping 

I  19] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

voice.  She  was  effaced,  but  not  insignificant,  and  had 
an  air,  for  all  her  silence,  of  taking  everything  in.  Her 
small  face,  peaked  and  pinched  rather  than  delicate, 
would  have  been  childish,  like  her  voice,  were  it  not 
for  her  eyes.  He  reflected  now,  watching  her  move 
quietly  among  her  flowers,  that  it  was  really  because 
of  her  eyes  he  had  not  liked  her.  They  were  so  un- 
childish;  so  large;  so  bright;  so  pale;  and  her  broad 
eyebrows,  darker  in  tint  than  her  faded  hair,  gave 
them  an  almost  startling  emphasis.  Her  face  seemed 
barred  across  by  these  eyebrows,  and,  beneath  them, 
her  eyes  were  like  captives  looking  out. 

The  flowers  at  last  were  finished  and  placed,  beau 
tifully  placed,  beautifully  arranged,  the  primroses  in 
shallow  white  earthenware,  the  windflowers  in  glasses 
that  showed  their  thin,  rosy  stems,  and  when  Cicely 
Latimer  went  at  last,  closing  the  door  softly  behind 
her,  he  felt  himself  draw  a  long  breath  of  relief. 

"That's  a  singular  little  person,"  he  remarked. 

Antonia,  it  was  evident,  was  not  thinking  of  Cicely 
Latimer.  Her  eyes  came  back  to  him  from  far  dis 
tances.  Or,  were  they  far,  those  distances?  Was  it  in 
[20] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

shallows  or  in  depths  that  her  mind  had  lain  dream 
ing? 

"Is  she  a  cousin,  did  you  tell  me?"  he  asked. 

"Cicely?"  She  recovered  his  comment  as  well  as 
his  question  and  answered  that  first.  "She's  a  great 
dear,  not  singular  at  all.  Yes;  a  cousin;  Malcolm's 
first  cousin.  A  niece  of  old  Mrs.  Wellwood's." 

"And  she's  always  lived  here?" 

"Almost  always.  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wellwood  built  the 
house,  you  know,  when  they  were  first  married,  and 
Cicely  came  to  them  here  as  a  child.  She  had  been 
left  an  orphan." 

"How  old  is  she,  then?" 

"Oh,  she  must  be  quite  old  now,"  Antonia  in  her 
secure  youth  computed.  "She  was  older,  a  good  deal, 
than  Malcolm;  nearly  forty,  perhaps." 

"She's  still  in  mourning,  I  see." 

"Yes.  So  am  I,"  said  Antonia,  not  resentfully,  but 
with  an  added  sadness.  "It's  not  yet  two  years, 
Bevis.  And  hardly  more  than  a  year  since  Mrs. 
Wellwood's  death." 

"It's  a  matter  of  feeling,  naturally.  One  doesn't 
[21] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

expect  a  cousin  to  wear  mourning  as  long  as  a  widow. 
But  they  were  like  brother  and  sister,  I  suppose." 

"Absolutely.  Malcolm  went  to  her  with  every 
thing.  He  told  her  all  about  me  when  he  first  fell  in 
love,  and  she  helped  him  in  it  all." 

"Will  she  go  on  living  with  you  here?" 
"Go  on?  Cicely?  Of  course  she  will.  I  can't  think  of 
this  place  without  her.  I  think  it  would  kill  her  if  she 
were  to  be  taken  from  it.  Mrs.  Wellwood  spoke  to  me 
about  it  before  she  died.  It 's  like  a  sacred  trust.  She 
has  a  little  money.  It 's  not  that.  But  she 's  as  much  a 
part  of  it  as  the  trees  and  hills.  She  came  to  me  at 
once,  all  the  same,  after  everything  happened,  and 
said  she  would  perfectly  understand  if  I  would 
rather  start  anew,  quite  by  myself.  There  was  n't  a 
quaver  or  an  appeal.  She  was,  I  saw,  quite  ready.  She 
is  the  sort  of  person  who  is  ready  for  anything.  I  told 
her  that  as  long  as  she  lived  it  was  her  home.  I  took 
her  into  my  arms,"  said  Antonia,  "and,  in  a  sense, 
she's  been  there  ever  since.  Though,  in  another 
sense,  perhaps  the  deeper,  it's  I  who  am  in  hers.  She 
takes  such  wonderful,  such  devoted  care  of  me." 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

"I  see."  Captain  Saltonhall  was  feeling  for  his 
cigarette-case.  "It's  lucky  you  are  so  much  attached 
to  each  other. — Do  you  mind? — Will  you  have  one?  " 

"Please." 

He  was  preparing  to  hoist  himself  out  of  his  chair 
with  the  cigarette-case  and  match-box,  but  she 
sprang  up  and  came  to  him.  "You  can't  give  your 
self  these  luxuries  of  convention,"  she  smiled,  rather 
as  if  at  an  unruly  patient.  "You  must  let  me  wait  on 
you,  rather.  At  all  events,  till  you  get  more  used  to  it. 
Dear  old  Bevis.  You  're  so  brave  that  one  forgets  all 
about  it." 

She  leaned  over  him,  while  he  gave  her  a  light,  and 
then,  the  match  having  gone  out  in  his  rather  un 
steady  fingers,  leaned  still  nearer  to  light  his  cigarette 
from  hers.  But,  gently,  he  laid  his  hands  upon  her 
arms  and  held  her  there,  looking  closely  into  her  eyes. 
"Do  you  love  me?"  he  asked. 

Her  cigarette  was  between  her  lips.  She  could  not 

answer.  He  released  one  hand  so  that  she  might  free 

herself,  and  although  the  gesture  might  have  brought 

an  element  of  mirth  into  their  gravity  she  sought  no 

[  23  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

refuge  in  it.  Half  leaning,  half  kneeling  beside  him, 
she  made  no  attempt  to  draw  away  and  he  saw  her 
eyes  widen  in  their  grief,  their  perplexity,  and  their 
delight.  "I  don't  know,  Bevis  dear.  I  don't  know. 
How  can  I  know?  "  she  almost  wept. 

"You  do  know.  I  can  tell  you  that  you  know,  for  I 
do.  You  love  me."  He  had  laid  his  hold  again  upon  her 
and  he  slightly  shook  her  as  he  spoke. 

"I  can't.  I  can't.  You  must  let  me  wait.  You  must 
give  me  time." 

"All  the  time  you  want.  I've  nothing  to  do  but  go 
on  waiting.  I  'm  ready  for  it.  But  don't  be  too  cruel. 
What  do  you  gain  by  it?" 

"I  don't  mean  to  be  cruel.  Please  believe  that; 
please  do." 

"You  don't  mean  it;  but  you  are.  It's  enough  for 
you  to  have  me  here,  waiting,  and  making  love  to 
you,  day  after  day,  month  after  month,  as  I  did  in 
London.  I  understand  it  all.  You  keep  him  like  that, 
and  you  keep  me.  And  what  torments  you  is  that  you 
can't  see  how  you  can  keep  us  both  if  you  give  me 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

"Oh  —  Bevis.  You  are  so  horrible.  So  horribly 
clear.  You  are  far,  far  clearer  than  I  can  ever  be.  Ye\ 
—  no,  that 's  not  all  there  is  to  it.  Give  me  time  to 
think.  I  told  you  that  I  should  think  better  up  here, 
in  his  home  —  with  you  to  help  me.  I  can  only  think 
clearly  if  I'm  given  time." 

"You  can't  do  anything  clearly.  You're  always  in 
a  mist.  You  want  to  know  yourself;  I  grant  you  your 
honesty;  but  your  feeling  makes  a  mist  around  you. 
Listen  to  me.  Let  me  show  it  to  you.  You  love  him 
still,  of  course.  I  should  n't  care  for  you  if  you  did  n't. 
You  '11  go  on  loving  him.  And  it  will  hurt  sometimes. 
It  will  hurt  me,  too.  People  are  made  up  of  these 
irreconcilable  knots.  It  can't  be  helped.  We're  here 
in  life  together,  and  we  belong  to  each  other,  and 
there's  nothing  between  us  but  a  memory.  Perhaps 
you  could  go  on  holding  out  against  me;  but  you 
can't  go  on  holding  out  against  yourself.  You  want  to 
be  mine  nearly  as  much  as  I  want  you  to  be.  Darling 
Tony  —  your  eyes  are  full  of  love  as  you  look  at  me 
now." 

He  had  held  her  more  tightly,  drawn  her  more 
f  25  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

near,  and  now,  his  haggard  young  face  lighted  with 
the  sudden  ardour  of  his  conviction,  he  saw  his  light 
flash  back  to  him  from  her,  so  that  dropping  his 
hands  from  her  arms,  he  seized  her,  drew  her  down  to 
him,  enfolded  her,  and,  feeling  her  yield,  kissed  her 
again  and  again. 

"Bevis!"  she  whispered,  amazed,  aghast,  yet,  in 
her  yielding,  confessing  everything. 

When  she  drew  herself  away  and  stood  up  beside 
him,  it  was  blindly,  putting  her  hand  out  for  the 
table,  her  face  averted;  and  so  she  stood  for  a  mo 
ment,  while  he  saw  that  the  colour  bathed  her  face 
and  neck.  Then  he  saw  that  the  tears  rained 'down.  He 
had,  strangely,  never  seen  her  cry  before,  though  he 
had  seen  her  at  the  earlier  moments  of  her  great 
grief.  She  had  been  frozen,  gaunt,  lost,  then. 
"Darling  Tony  —  forgive  me." 
"Oh,"  she  wept,  "it's  not  your  fault!" 
"Yes,  it  is.    Don't  ask  me  to  regret  it;  but  it 
is." 

"No;  no.  It's  not  your  fault,"  she  repeated.  And 
she  began  to  move  away,  blindly. 
[  26  1 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

"Tell  me  you  forgive  me."  He  had  drawn  himself 
up  in  his  chair  and  looked  after  her. 

"Of  course  I  forgive  you.  I  can't  forgive  myself." 

"That's  just  as  bad.  Must  you  go?" 

"I  must.  I  must.  Later  — we'll  talk.  I'll  try  to 
think.  I'll  try  to  understand.  I'll  try  to  explain 
everything." 

She  had  got  herself  to  the  door  and  she  had  not 
turned  her  face  to  him  again.  "Don't  despise  me," 
she  said  as  she  left  him. 


II 

THOUGH  the  traces  of  her  tears  were  still  visi 
ble,  Antonia  met  him  at  lunch  with  composure. 
Like  all  the  rooms  at  Wyndwards,  the  dining-roorn 
was  too  accurate  and  intended  and,  darkly  panelled 
as  it  was,  the  low  mullioned  windows  looking  out  on 
the  high  ring-court,  it  had,  through  some  miscalcula 
tion  in  the  lighting,  an  uncomfortably  sombre  air. 
They  sat  there,  the  three  of  them,  around  the  pol 
ished  table,  with  its  embroidered  linens,  its  crystal 
and  silver,  highly  civilized  and  modern  in  the  highly 
civilized  and  modern  room.  He  and  Antonia,  at  all 
events,  were  that.  Miss  Latimer,  perhaps,  belonged 
to  a  niore  primitive  tradition.  It  struck  him  that  he 
would  have  liked  Wyndwards  better  if  it  had  kept  to 
that  tradition;  the  tradition,  in  fact,  of  making  no 
attempts.  As  it  was,  it  did  n't  match  Miss  Latimer, 
nor,  though  modern  and  civilized,  did  it  match  him 
and  Tony.  It  was  neither  sceptical  nor  sophisticated, 
nor  indifferent. 

[28] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

Antonia  leaned  her  elbow  on  the  table  while  she 
ate  and  looked  out  at  the  ring-court.  Miss  Latimer 
stooped,  but  did  not  lounge.  She  still  wore  her  hat 
and  ate  in  a  business-like  manner,  throwing  from 
time  to  time  a  bit  of  bread  or  biscuit  to  the  dogs.  The 
task  of  talking  to  her  fell  entirely  upon  him,  for  An 
tonia,  though  composed,  was  evidently  in  no  mood 
for  talking.  He  asked  her  questions  about  the  coun 
try  and  its  birds,  beasts,  and  flowers,  and  she  an 
swered,  if  not  affably,  yet  with  an  accuracy  that  be 
trayed  a  community  of  taste. 

She  told  him  that  they  were  rather  too  far  north 
to  get  stone-curlews,  as  he  had  hoped  they  might. 
"I  found  a  nest  once,"  she  said:  "but  that  was 
when  I  was  staying  with  some  people  ten  miles 
away." 

"What  luck!  Did  you  see  the  birds?" 

"Yes.  I  hid  near  by  for  some  hours  and  saw  them 
going  to  and  fro.  I  could  have  photographed  them  if 
I  had  had  a  camera." 

"What  luck!"  Captain  Saltonhall  repeated,  with 
sincerity.  "I've  only  once  had  a  glimpse  of  one, 
[29  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

flying.  Queer,  watchful,  uncanny  creatures,  aren't 
they,  with  great,  clear  eyes." 

"They  are  rather  strange-looking  birds." 

It  struck  him  suddenly  that  Miss  Latimer  herself 
looked  like  a  stone-curlew. 

"They've  the  same  cry,  nearly,  as  the  ordinary 
curlew,  haven't  they?"  he  continued.  "You  get 
plenty  of  those  up  here,  I  suppose?" 

"Oh,  yes.  You  can  hear  them  any  day.  It  is  rather 
the  same  sort  of  cry." 

Antonia  knew  little  about  the  country  and  was  not 
observant  of  nature;  but  now,  leaning  her  head  on 
her  hand  and  looking  out  of  the  window,  she  re 
marked,  unexpectedly:  "I  hate  their  cry;  if  it  is  the 
cry  of  curlews  I  mean.  Are  n't  they  the  birds  that 
have  that  high,  bleak,  drifting  wail?" 

"Oh,  I  rather  like  it,"  said  Captain  Saltonhall. 
"Yes,  that's  the  bird.  It's  the  sort  of  melancholy 
ordained  by  Providence  to  go  with  tea-time  and  a 
wood-fire,  as  eggs  are  ordained  to  go  with  bacon." 

"No,"  said  Antonia.  "It's  ordained  to  go  with 
nothing.  It  makes  me  think  of  something  that  has 
[  30] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

been  forgotten;  something  that  has  given  up  even  the 
hope  of  being  remembered,  yet  that  laments." 

"But  the  curlew  isn't  forgotten.  It  is  probably 
calling  to  its  mate." 

"  Probably.  I  am  not  talking  of  the  natural  history 
of  the  bird.  Its  cry  sounds  like  the  cry  of  a  creature 
that  has  been  forgotten  by  its  mate." 

"  What  do  you  think  it  sounds  like?  "  he  asked  Miss 
Latimer.  He  distrusted  the  direction  taken  by  An- 
tonia's  thoughts. 

And,  looking  before  her,  seeming  not  to  follow  their 
definitions,  she  answered  coldly: 

"I  think  Antonia  describes  it  very  beautifully." 

After  lunch  Antonia  said  that  Miss  Latimer  must 
show  them  the  garden.  He  saw  that  she  intended  to 
keep  this  companion  near  them  and  would  not,  for 
the  present,  be  alone  with  him. 

In  the  flagged  hall,  wide  and  light,  there  were 
oaken  chests  and  tables  and  large  framed  engravings 
of  cathedrals.  Antonia  selected  a  sunshade  from  the 
stand.  None  were  black;  they  were  all  pre-war  sun 
shades,  and  the  one  she  found  made  her  lovely  head, 
[  31  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

when  they  went  out  into  the  sunlight,  seem  still 
paler  and  darker  against  its  faded  poppy-red. 

She  led  them  first  into  the  little  walled  garden  of 
her  fears.  One  stepped  out  into  it  from  a  door  in  the 
hall,  and,  wondering  if  she  had  put  a  wholesome  com 
pulsion  upon  herself,  he  expressed  an  indirect  ap 
proval  of  her  good  sense  by  pausing  to  look  about 
him  and  to  say,  "How  delightfully  planned  this  is." 

He  had  never  seen  so  many  white  fritillaries  grow 
ing  together;  their  jade  green  and  alabaster  white, 
rising  from  narrow  beds  among  the  flags,  seemed  like 
another  expression  of  the  stone.  The  fountain  was 
musical,  and  the  stone  bench  under  the  great  cedar 
invited  to  poetical  reverie.  "That  cedar  is  the  oldest 
thing  here,  is  n't  it?"  he  asked. 

Antonia  stood,  gently  turning  the  handle  of  the 
sunshade  on  her  shoulder,  and  she,  too,  looked  about 
her,  her  eyes  meeting  his  for  a  moment  as  if,  with 
a  grateful  humour,  acknowledging  his  approbation. 
"I'm  not  quite  as  foolish  as  you  may  think,"  they 
told  him. 

"It's  the  only  old  thing  in  the  place,"  she  said  — 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

"except  for  the  bits  of  ruin  in  the  garden  walls. 
There  was  a  border  castle  here,  long  ago,  and  the 
cedar  must  have  belonged  to  its  later  days.  I  'm  glad 
it's  all  so  new,  are  n't  you?  I  don't  like  old  places. 
Not  to  live  in." 

It  was,  perhaps,  only  as  looked  down  at  from  the 
third  window  that  the  flagged  garden  had  its  un- 
canniness  for  her.  She  seemed  quite  content  to  stand 
there  in  the  sunlight  and  admire  it  with  him.  Any 
distaste  or  reluctance  was  Miss  Latimer's,  and  he  did 
not  know  why  it  was  that  he  divined  it  beneath  her 
air  of  detachment.  It  was  she  who,  presently,  moved 
away,  passing  out  into  the  high-walled  kitchen  gar 
den,  and  they  followed  her. 

There  were  cordon  fruit-trees  round  the  vegetable- 
beds,  and  daffodils,  at  one  end,  grew  thickly  against 
the  walls.  Wide,  herbaceous  borders  ran  on  either 
side  of  the  central  path,  showing  already  their  clumps 
and  bosses  of  green  and  bronze. 

"Cicely  plans  it  all,  you  know,"  said  Antonia, 
going  now  before  them,  "and  does  heaps  of  the  work 
herself,  with  spade  and  fork.  Mrs.Wellwood  had  only 
[  33  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

the  one  gardener  and  a  boy.  I  can't  think  how  Cicely 
contrives  to  keep  it  all  so  beautifully." 

"It  was  Mrs.  Wellwood  who  planned  it  all,"  said 
Miss  Latimer.  But  she  could  not  disown  the  work. 

He  was  seeing  her  more  and  more  clearly  as  one  of 
those  curious  beings  whose  personalities  are  parasitic 
on  a  place.  He  doubted  whether  her  thoughts  ever 
wandered  beyond  Wyndwards.  All  her  activities,  cer 
tainly,  were  conditioned  by  it.  It  would  not  be  only 
that  she  dug  and  planted,  hoed  and  watered,  mulched 
and  staked  and  raked  in  the  garden.  He  felt  sure,  too, 
acute  young  man  that  he  was,  that  she  cut  out  the 
loose  chintz  covers  for  the  furniture,  superintended 
the  making  of  marmalade  in  spring  and  jam  in  sum 
mer,  kept  a  careful  eye  on  the  store-cupboard  and 
washed  the  dogs  with  her  own  hands.  There  were 
two  dogs :  an  old  Dandie  Dinmont  and  a  young  fox- 
terrier;  and  he  had,  all  the  while  they  walked,  a  feel 
ing,  not  a  bit  ghostly,  amusing  rather  than  sad,  that 
they  were  bits  of  Malcolm's  soul,  detached  bits,  re 
maining  on  earth  behind  him;  the  Dandie  Dinmont 
the  soul  of  his  happy  boyhood  at  Wyndwards  and 
[  34  1 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

the  fox-terrier  the  soul  of  his  maturity.  Miss  Latimer 
would  find  in  tending  them  the  same  passionate  satis 
faction  she  had  in  all  of  it;  the  place,  and  the  persons 
it  still  embodied  for  her  and  who  for  her  survived  in 
it,  indistinguishably  mingled.  All  of  it  was  her  life 
and  she  could  imagine  no  other. 

Antonia  would  never  be  that  sort  of  woman. 
Places,  if  not  parasitic  upon  her,  at  least  were  mere 
settings  and  backgrounds.  She  made  the  silvery 
forms  of  the  distant  hills  subservient  to  her  beauty  as, 
with  the  faded  silken  sunshade,  she  drifted  before 
them  along  the  paths.  She  wore  still,  rather  absurdly, 
though  the  day  was  so  fine  and  the  paths  so  dry,  her 
little  black  satin  house-shoes,  high-heeled  and  laced 
about  the  ankle  with  satin  ribbon;  and  as  she  walked 
she  cast  her  admiring,  unobservant  glances  to  right 
and  left  or  stooped  now  and  then  to  pat  the  dogs.  The 
dogs  were  very  fond  of  her,  racing  forward  and  then 
returning  to  look  up  at  her  with  interrogative  de 
light.  That,  too,  made  him  think  of  Malcolm.  They 
were  much  fonder  of  Tony  than  of  Miss  Latimer,  to 
whom  they  owed  so  much. 

[35] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

It  was  he  who  had  to  do  all  the  talking  to  Miss 
Latimer,  and  it  was  difficult  to  talk  to  her  and  to 
express  his  accurate  appreciation  of  her  gardening 
exploits,  or  his  admiration  of  the  changing  views  of 
the  house  that  their  walk  disclosed,  since,  in  answer 
ing  him,  it  was  always  as  if  she  avoided  some  attempt 
at  intimacy  and  as  if  he  could  make  no  reference  to 
the  place  without  being  too  personal.  This  was  espe 
cially  funny  since,  behind  his  praise,  was  the  judgment 
that  what  the  place  lacked  was  personality;  and  he 
had  n't  the  faintest  wish  to  be  intimate  with  Miss 
Latimer. 

It  was  not  until  after  tea  that  he  again  found  him 
self  alone  with  Antonia.  They  were  in  the  drawing- 
room,  the  tea-table  had  been  taken  away,  the  lamps 
lighted,  and  Antonia  was  embroidering  before  the 
fire. 

"Would  she  hate  me  if  I  ever  did  come  to  marry 
you?"  he  asked.  He  asked  it  without  seeming  to  re 
call  the  morning  and  its  avowal. 

Antonia,  following  his  advice,  was  selecting  a 
shade  of  azalea-green  to  lay  against  her  pearly  grey. 
[36] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

She  had  always  asked  his  advice  about  such  matters, 
and  the  cushions  and  firescreens  in  her  London  house 
recalled  to  him  how  many  summer  afternoons  before 
the  war  when,  on  week-ends  in  the  country,  she  had 
held  up  her  work  to  ask,  "Is  that  right,  Bevis?" 
while  Malcolm  smoked  beside  them,  amused  by  their 
preoccupation  over  the  alternative  of  pink  or  orange. 

"Cicely,  you  mean?"  Antonia  asked. 

"Yes.  Would  she  resent  it?  Would  she  hate  me  for 
it?  —  and  you?" 

Antonia  considered,  and  he  knew  while  she  con 
sidered,  her  eyes  on  the  azalea  silk,  that  he  filled  her 
again  with  deep  delight.  He  and  his  passion  were 
there,  encompassing,  yet  not  pursuing  her.  She  gave 
nothing  and  betrayed  nothing  and  she  was  secure  of 
all. 

"I  don't  think  she  could  hate  me.  That  sounds 
fatuous;  but  I  believe  it's  true.  I  don't  know  about 
you.  But  no;  I  don't  think  she'd  resent  it.  Why 
should  she?" 

"Well,  caring  for  him  so  much  and  seeing  me  here 
in  his  place." 

[37] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"How  brave  you  are,  Bevis,"  said  Antonia  after  a 
moment,  drawing  out  her  silk.  It  was  the  quality  in 
him  to  which  she  most  often  reverted. 

"Am  I?  Why?" 

"You  are  not  afraid  to  remind  me." 

"Why  should  I  be  afraid?  I  know  your  thoughts. 
But  I  'm  not  going  to  talk  about  them,  or  about  mine. 
I  want  you  to  explain  Miss  Latimer." 

"There's  not  much  to  explain.  She  shows  it  all,  I 
think.  She 's  deep  and  narrow  and  simple.  You  don't 
like  her.  I  can  see  that." 

"I  can't  imagine  how.  I'm  constantly  making  my 
self  agreeable." 

"To  me;  not  to  her.  She  knows  as  well  as  I  do  why 
you  take  trouble  over  her.  Not  that  I  blame  you.  I 
did  n't  think  I  should  like  her  when  I  first  saw  her. 
And  then  I  came  to  find  that  I  did;  more  and  more; 
very,  very  much.  Or,  perhaps,  it  is  trust,  rather  than 
liking,"  Antonia  mused.  "Poor  little  Cicely.  Do  you 
know,  I  don't  think  any  one  has  ever  really  liked  her 
much.  Not  old  Mrs.  Wellwood,  really,  nor  even  Mal 
colm.  It  hurt  me  to  feel,  in  a  moment,  that  Mrs. 
[  38  ] 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

Wellwood  liked  even  me,  whom  she  hardly  knew, 
better." 

"I  am  not  surprised,"  Captain  Saltonhall  com 
mented. 

"No;  but  that's  not  relevant,  Bevis;  because  one 
does  n't  expect  one's  mother-in-law  to  like  one,  how 
ever  charming  one  may  be.  What  I  felt  about  it  was 
that  Cicely  had  starved  her,  just  as  she  starved 
Cicely.  Neither  could  give  the  other  anything  except 
absolute  trust.  Cicely  was  the  fonder,  I  think,  for  old 
Mrs.  Wellwood  was  cold  as  well  as  shy,  cold  to  every 
one  but  Malcolm;  even  with  me  she  was  cold;  and 
even  with  Malcolm  she  was,  always,  shy." 

"Dismal  it  sounds,  for  all  of  them." 

"No;  it  was  n't  that.  Cheerful  and  serene  rather. 
But  all  the  same  Cicely  is  pathetic.  And  the  more  I 
think  of  her,  the  more  I  admire  her.  She's  so  indi 
vidual,  yet  so  impersonal,  if  one  can  make  the  distinc 
tion.  There's  no  appeal  of  any  sort;  no  demand.  She 
never  seems  to  need  anything  or  to  ask  anything;  per 
haps  that  is  why  she  does  n't  gain  devotion;  the  more 
self-absorbed  and  demanding  people  are,  the  more 
[39  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

devotion  they  get,  I'm  afraid.  At  all  events,  she's 
absolutely  devoted;  absolutely  selfless  and  straight." 

"What  did  they  do  with  themselves,  she  and  Mrs. 
Wellwood,  when  Malcolm  was  n't  here  to  give  them 
an  object?  I  never  saw  his  mother.  He  said  she  hated 
coming  to  town." 

"Oh,  it  was  miserable  to  see  them  in  town,  as  I  did 
once;  forlorn,  caged  birds.  Malcolm  was  their  object, 
you  see,  even  when  he  was  n't  here.  And  they  lived 
together  just  as  Cicely  lives  now  alone.  There  are 
country  neighbours  —  Mrs.  Wellwood  was  scrupu 
lously  sociable  —  and  the  village,  and  the  garden. 
Cicely  still  goes  to  read  to  old  bed-ridden  women  and 
to  take  them  soup.  I  thought,  in  my  London  igno 
rance,  that  the  lady-bountiful  was  a  figure  of  fun  to 
every  one  nowadays,  flouted  from  the  cottage  door, 
and  all  the  rest  of  it.  But  I  've  found  out  that  there 's 
nothing  the  cottage  really  loves  so  well.  Independence 
and  committees  bore  them  dreadfully;  they  have  all 
that  here;  there's  an  energetic  vicar's  wife,  and  she 
got  even  poor  Mrs.  Wellwood  on  her  committee;  it 
bores  the  village  people,  but  it  frightened  her.  Cicely 
[  40  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

never  would.  I  can't  imagine  Cicely  on  a  committee. 
She  'd  have  nothing  to  say,  though  it  would  n't 
frighten  her." 

He  had  always  savoured  Antonia's  vagrant  im 
pressionism.  "Did  they  read?"  he  asked. 

"I  should  rather  think  so!"  she  laughed  a  little. 
"They  were  great  on  reading.  All  the  biographies  in 
two  volumes  and  all  the  travels,  and  French  memoires 
—  translated  and  expurgated.  Cicely  has  the  most 
ingenuous  ideas  about  the  court  of  Louis  the  Four 
teenth.  Novels,  too;  but  they  contrived  always  to 
miss  the  good  ones.  I  don't  suppose  they  ever  at 
tempted  a  Henry  James  or  heard  of  Anatole  France." 

"And  never  danced  a  tango,  a  plus  forte  raison,  or 
saw  a  Russian  ballet." 

"They  did  see  a  Russian  ballet,  that  once  they  were 
up.  Malcolm  and  I  took  them.  I  think  it  bewildered 
Mrs.  Wellwood,  and  Cicely  was  very  dry  about  it. 
And  they  saw  me  dance  the  tango;  I  did  it  for  them, 
here,"  said  Antonia,  and  involuntarily  she  sighed, 
although  she  did  not  look  up  at  her  companion.  She 
and  Bevis,  adepts  of  the  dance,  had,  before  the  war, 
[  41  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

danced  together  continually.  "They  liked  seeing  me 
do  it,"  she  said.  "They  liked  my  differences  and  what 
they  felt  to  be  my  audacities.  But  they  'd  have  liked 
anything  Malcolm  did."  And  then  she  came  back  to 
his  first  question.  "As  far  as  that  goes,  my  remarry 
ing,  if  I  ever  did,  as  long  as  it  was  n't  too  quickly,  and 
some  one  Malcolm  liked,  I  don't  for  a  moment  think 
she'd  mind." 

Captain  Saltonhall  did  not  agree  with  her,  but  he 
did  not  say  so.  They  talked,  thus,  very  pleasantly, 
till  the  hour  for  dressing,  and  after  dinner  Antonia 
sang  to  him  and  Miss  Latimer.  "What  shall  it  be, 
Cicely?"  she  asked,  and  Miss  Latimer  said,  "The  old 
favourites,  please."  So  that  Captain  Saltonhall,  who 
had  only  heard  her  sing  Brahms,  Duparc,  and  De 
bussy,  heard  now  old  English  folk-songs  and  "Better 
lo'ed  you  could  na'  be."  She  had  a  melancholy,  sweet, 
imperfect  voice,  and  though  her  singing  had  magic  it 
was  the  flutelike,  expressionless  magic  of  the  wood 
land.  She  sang  indolently,  like  a  blackbird,  and  the 
current  of  the  song  carried  her.  But  it  was  a  voice  that 
moved  him  more  than  any  other  voice  he  knew,  and 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

as  he  sat,  impassive,  apparently,  his  hands  clasped 
round  his  knee,  he  felt  the  tears,  again  and  again, 
rising  to  his  eyes. 

Miss  Latimer  sat  staring  into  the  fire.  She  was 
dry-eyed.  But  he  felt  sure  that  she,  too,  was  only 
apparently  impassive.  He  felt  sure  that  these  songs 
had  been  Malcolm's  favourites,  too. 


Ill 

THEY  were  sitting  next  day  in  a  sunny  hollow  of 
the  moors.  Above  their  heads  the  spring  air  was 
chill,  and  as  they  had  walked  they  had  felt  the  wind; 
but,  sunken  in  this  little,  sheltered  cup,  summer  was 
almost  with  them  and  the  grass  and  heather  exhaled  a 
summer  fragrance.  Bevis  had  insisted  on  the  walk, 
saying  that  he  could  manage  it  perfectly,  and  indeed 
they  were  half  a  mile  from  the  house  before  he  had 
owned  that  they  had  gone  far  enough  for  his  strength; 
a  little  too  far,  he  was  aware,  as  they  sank  down  on 
the  grass,  and  he  was  sorry,  for  he  knew  from  An- 
tonia's  face  that  she  was  going  to  talk  to  him  and 
that  all  his  strength  and  resource  would  not  be  too 
much  for  the  interview. 

"I've  been  thinking,  Bevis,"  she  began  at  once, 
sitting  a  little  below  him,  her  hands  clasped  round 
her  knees.  "I  want  to  tell  you  everything.  In  the  first 
place,  let  me  be  quite  straight.  I  do  love  you,"  she  said, 
without  looking  round  at  him. "  I  am  in  love  with  you." 
[  44  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"Yes,"  he  assented. 

"What  happened  yesterday  morning  couldn't 
have  happened  had  I  not  been,"  she  defined  for  her 
self.  "Not  that  I  mean  it  exonerates  me." 

"Or  me?" 

"You  don't  need  exoneration.  You  are  not  un 
faithful." 

"No,  I'm  not  unfaithful;  and  I  don't  think  you 
are.  But  go  on." 

She  paused  for  a  moment  as  though  his  assurance 
hurt  rather  than  helped  her.  "That  is  what  it  all 
comes  back  to,  for  me,  Be  vis.  Am  I  unfaithful?  If 
Malcolm  were  alive,  I  should  be." 

"  If  Malcolm  were  alive,  you  would  n't  be  in  love 
with  me,"  he  set  her  straight. 

"I 'm  so  glad  you  see  that  and  believe  it,"  she  mur 
mured,  while  he  saw  the  slow  flush  in  her  cheek. 
"That's  one  of  the  things  I  most  wanted  to  make 
clear." 

"You  had  no  need  to,  my  dear  girl.  I  know  how  it 
was  with  you  and  Malcolm." 

"You  know.  You  remember.  Yes."  She  drew  a 
I  45  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

deep  breath.  He  had  comforted  her.  "So,  you  see, 
I  'm  only  in  love  with  you  because  he  is  n't  here  any 
longer.  If  he  were  here,  I  could  n't  love  any  one  but 
him."  She  stopped  for  a  moment.  "Bevis,  that  is 
what  it  comes  to.  Is  he  here?" 

"Here?  How  do  you  mean?"  the  young  man 
asked. 

"Are  we  immortal?  Do  we  survive  death?  Does 
Malcolm,  somewhere,  still  love  me?"  She  kept  her 
face  turned  from  him  and  he  was  aware  that  he  felt 
her  questions  irrelevant  and  that  this  was  wrong  of 
him  or  perhaps  came  of  his  being  tired.  Or  perhaps  it 
came  from  the  fact  that  the  soft  edges  and  tips  of 
Antonia's  averted  profile,  soft  yet  so  clear,  shadowed 
yet  so  pale,  against  the  sky,  were  more  relevant  than 
any  such  questions.  He  looked  away  from  her,  calling 
himself  to  order,  and  then,  in  a  different  voice,  for 
though  he  still  felt  her  questions  irrelevant,  he  was 
able  to  think  of  them,  he  said,  "I  see." 

What  he  seemed  first  to  see  was  himself  as  he  had 
been  not  many  years  ago,  a  youth  in  his  rooms  at 
Oxford.  Books  piled  beside  him,  a  pipe  between  his 
[46] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

teeth,  lie  saw  himself  staring  into  the  fire,  while,  in  a 
sad  yet  pleasant  perplexity,  he  had  brooded  on  such 
questions.  Body  and  soul;  appearance  and  reality; 
the  temporal  and  the  eternal  consciousness;  —  the 
old  words  chimed  in  his  brain.  Then  came  a  swift 
memory  of  Antonia  and  himself  dancing  the  tango  in 
London,  and  then  the  memory  of  the  dead  face  of  a 
little  French  poilu  he  had  come  upon  one  evening  in 
France,  by  the  roadside,  a  face  sweet  and  childlike. 
How  many  dead  faces  he  had  seen  since  he  had 
danced  the  tango  with  Antonia,  and  how  wraithlike, 
beside  the  agonies  he  had  since  passed  through,  were 
the  mental  disciplines  and  distractions  of  his  studious 
youth !  Yet  it  all  held  together.  It  was  because  of  the 
agonies  that  the  answers  had  come. 

Antonia's  voice  broke  in  upon  his  reverie  and  his 
eyes  were  brought  back  to  her.  "Help  me,  Bevis," 
she  said. 

Something  in  that  made  him  dimly  smile.  "Help 

you  in  what  way,  my  dear  girl?  Which  do  you  want 

most  —  to  have  me  and  to  believe  that  Malcolm 

does  n't  exist  any  longer;  or  to  believe  him  immortal 

[  47  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

and  to  lose  me?"  He  had  not  meant  to  be  cruel;  he 
was  placing  the  dilemma  before  himself  as  well  as  her; 
but  he  saw  he  had  been,  when  her  slow,  helpless  gaze 
of  pain  turned  upon  him  and  her  eyes  filled  with 
tears. 

"Why  do  you  always  show  me  that  I  must  despise 
myself?"  she  said.  "How  can  I  know  what  I  want?  " 

"Dear  Tony,"  he  said  gently,  "what  you  want, 
what  you  really  want,  is  me.  And  I  don't  despise  you 
for  that." 

"Oh  —  it's  not  so  simple,  Bevis;  —  oh,  it's  not!  I 
want  you;  but  if  he  were  here  I  'd  go  to  him  and  leave 
you  without  a  pang." 

"No,  you  wouldn't,"  he  smiled  grimly.  "You'd 
leave  me,  of  course,  because  he  has  been  far  more  in 
your  life  than  I  have;  —  and  he  is  your  husband.  But 
it  would  n't  be  without  a  pang." 

"With  a  pang,  then,"  she  was  brave  and  faced  it. 
"But  that  would  pass  when  I  had  told  him  every 
thing  and  been  forgiven.  Malcolm,  I  know,  would 
forgive  me." 

"I  should  rather  say  he  would!"  Still  the  young 
[  48  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

man  laughed  a  little  grimly.  "Why  should  n't  he?  If 
a  man  returns  from  the  dead,  he  must  expect  to  find 
that  the  world  has  gone  on  without  him,  must  n't  he? 
After  all,  Tony  dear,  Malcolm  has  n't  merely  gone  to 
Australia  or  Patagonia;  he's  dead;  and  that  does 
make  a  difference." 

She  was  the  most  generous  and  unresentful  of 
creatures.  A  warm  flood  of  recognition  filled  him  as 
he  saw  how  he  still  hurt  her  and  how  she  took  it.  And 
he  was  harsh  and  crabbed.  He  had  always  had  an 
ironic  tongue  and  an  ironic  eye  for  reality,  in  himself 
and  in  others.  And  now,  entangled  in  his  own  passion 
and  in  the  webs  of  her  dreams  and  difficulties,  he 
recognized  something  perfidious  in  his  nature,  some 
thing  that,  while  it  adored  her,  yet  found  pleasure,  or 
relief,  in  dealing  her  now  and  then,  as  a  punishment 
for  what  she  made  him  suffer,  the  light  lash  of  his 
unent  angled  and  passionless  perception.  And  who 
was  he  to  lash  Tony? 

"Forgive  me,"  he  said,  leaning  over  and  looking 
down  at  her.  "I  am  a  brute,  as  I  told  you.  Why  am  I 
not  more  merely  grateful  to  you  for  loving  any  one  so 
[  49  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

useless?  I'll  help  you  in  any  way  I  can,  Tony.  What 
do  you  really  want  to  ask  me?  Perhaps  what  makes 
me  so  odious  to  you  is  that  I've  got  no  help  for  you." 

Perhaps  it  was.  A  shrinking  from  the  issue  she  put 
before  him  had  been  in  him  from  the  first. 

And  poor  Tony  did  not  suspect  what  he  meant; 
did  not,  for  all  her  attempt  at  clearness,  see  in  what 
way  she  really  wanted  him  to  help  her. 

"Please,  please  do,"  she  said.  "Try  to  be  gentle 
and  to  understand.  I  '11  go  by  what  you  say.  So  there 
it  is:  Do  you  believe  in  immortality,  Be  vis?" 

There  it  was,  indeed,  and  no  wonder  he  had 
shrunk.  If  it  had  come  to  him  as  a  test  before  the  war, 
how  easy  it  would  have  been,  with  a  sincerity  sad, 
for  all  its  personal  gain,  to  say,  "I  don't  know;  I 
really  don't  know  what  I  believe,  darling;  but  it 
does  n't  seem  to  me  at  all  likely."  But  now,  leaning 
over  her,  still  looking  at  her,  he  had  to  answer  in  the 
only  verbal  form  that  fitted  with  his  thought,  and  as 
he  did  so  he  felt  himself  grow  pale.  "  Yes,"  he  said;  "I 
do  believe  in  immortality,  Tony." 

She,  too,  then  grew  very  pale.  It  was  as  he  had 
[  50  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

foreseen.  She  had  not  really  believed.  It  had  only 
been  a  haunting  dream.  And  her  hope  had  been  that 
he  would  tell  her  that  to  him,  too,  it  was  only  a  dream. 
Poor  child !  Poor,  poor  child.  And  poor  Malcolm.  Was 
it  with  this  face  he  was  welcomed  back  among  the 
realities  of  her  world?  She  continued  to  look  at  him  in 
silence,  taking  it  all  in,  with  a  trust,  an  acceptance, 
pitiful  indeed;  and  suddenly,  seeing  in  her  despair 
his  full  justification,  he  took  her  into  his  arms;  — 
was  it  to  comfort,  or  to  claim  her,  against  his  con 
viction  and  her  despair?  "My  darling,"  he  said, 
pressing  his  head  against  hers,  "it  can't  part  us.  It 
shan't  part  us.  I  won't  let  you  destroy  your  life  and 
mine." 

She  had,  piteously,  put  her  arms  around  his  neck 
and  she  clung  to  him  like  a  frightened  child. 

"Listen,  dearest,"  he  said;  "when  I  say  it  I  don't 
mean  it  in  the  way  you  feel  and  fear  it.  I  don't  know 
how  to  say  what  I  believe.  It  does  n't  go  into  words. 
But  it  all  means  love.  That 's  what  I  Ve  come  to 
know.  I  can't  explain  how.  It  came  to  me,  one  night, 
in  a  sort  of  inner  vision,  Tony,  after  dreadful  things 
151] 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

had  happened  —  over  there,  you  know.  But  he  is  safe 
and  we  are  safe.  We  are  all  held  round  by  love.  That 's 
what  I  believe,  Tony.  It 's  God  that  makes  the  mean 
ing  of  immortality,  not  immortality  that  makes  the 
meaning  of  life." 

Nothing,  he  knew  it  as  he  held  her,  could  ever 
bring  them  nearer  than  this  moment.  He  had  never 
in  his  life  been  so  near  any  creature.  Reticent,  and, 
with  his  English  nature,  passionately  shy,  never  in 
his  life  could  he  have  believed  himself  capable  of 
uttering  such  words.  It  was  doing  himself  a  violence 
to  utter  them,  yet  sweet  to  do  himself  the  violence 
for  her.  And,  as  if  he  had  cut  out  his  heart  to  show  to 
her,  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  must  bring  her  his  con 
viction:  must  light  faith  in  her  from  the  flame  it 
bared. 

But,  in  the  silence  that  followed  and  as  she  still 
clung  to  him,  his  child  and  not  his  lover,  it  came  to 
him  that  he  had  lighted  nothing.  She  groped  in  a 
bewilderment  of  darkness. 

"But  he's  there,"  she  said.  "He  knc*ws  and  feels 
and  suffers,  if  he's  there." 

[  52  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"No,  no,  Tony.  It's  not  like  that.  We  are  all  to 
gether,  your  love  and  his  and  mine,  in  the  eternity 
where  Malcolm  is." 

"All  together?  When  you  tell  me  that  it's  you  I 
want  —  not  him?  I  don't  know  what  you  mean, 
Be  vis.  How  can  he  not  suffer  when  I  forget  him  in 
loving  you?" 

"You  don't  forget  him  in  loving  me.  But  we're 
not  made  in  such  a  way  that  we  can  think  of  every 
thing  at  once.  I  don't  believe  he  suffers.  Our  love 
may  be  happiness  to  him."  But  now  he  was  using 
mere  words.  He  had  fallen  back  into  the  world  of 
words.  This  was  not  the  light  he  had  tried  to  show 
her. 

"But  if  love  is  around  us  there,  it's  around  us 
here,  too;  yet  people,  here,  suffer  terribly.  They  may 
go  on  suffering  terribly  when  they  are  gone.  You 
can't  know  what  they  feel  when  they  are  gone, 
Bevis." 

"No;  I  can't  know.  We  can  know  nothing,  of 
course.  It's  a  question  of  feeling,  rather.  I  don't  feel 
it  as  you  do,  and  the  reason  for  that  is,  I  think,  that  I 
[53] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

see  .more  of  the  truth  than  you  do;  that  I  have  more 
faith." 

He  knew  his  faith;  but  he  no  longer  felt  it.  That  was 
because  his  body  was  becoming  very  tired.  And  her 
fear,  too,  had  its  infecting  power.  A  pang  did  stir  his 
heart. 

Poor  Tony.  She  never  knew  when  to  stop;  never 
knew  when  there  was  nothing  more  to  be  gained. 
Mercilessly  and  pitifully  she  went  on:  "If  it's  still 
Malcolm,  must  he  not  be  waiting  for  me;  wanting 
me?  Has  n't  love  like  that  something  special  and  un- 
sharable?  Oh,  you  know  it  has.  It  must  be  two;  it 
can't  be  three.  How  could  I  go  to  him,  with  you? 
Which  of  you  would  be  my  other  self?  You  know  you 
could  not  share  me.  We  could  not  hold  each  other, 
like  this,  and  love  each  other,  if  Malcolm  stood  be 
fore  us  now." 

"I  know,"  he  said,  and  his  deep  fatigue  wras  in  his 
voice.  "Perhaps  one  must  accept  that  there  is  loss 
and  suffering  always.  Perhaps  Malcolm  does  grieve 
to  see  you  with  me.  Who  can  tell?  I  can't.  I  can  only 
say  that  I  don't  feel  it  so.  I  can  only  say  that  if  I  felt 
[  54  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

it  so  I  'd  not  want  to  marry  you;  I  could  n't  want  you 
if  I  felt  it  so.  And  even  if  you  yourself  felt  him  so  near 
and  real  that  my  love  could  only  hurt  you,  I'd  go 
away  and  leave  you  in  peace.  But  it 's  not  like  that, 
Tony.  It  would  n't  be  to  leave  you  in  peace.  You 
could  n't  bear  to  have  me  go.  Something  quite  differ 
ent  has  happened.  You've  fallen  in  love  with  me." 

She  sat  silent  in  his  arms,  her  head  still  leaning  on 
his  shoulder,  and  he  knew  from  her  slow,  careful 
breathing  that  she  was  intensely  thinking  and  that 
he  had  not  helped  her.  If  only  he  had  not  been  so 
tired  to  begin  with,  perhaps  he  might  have  found 
something  more.  But  he  was  now  horribly  tired  and 
his  artificial  leg  began  to  pull  at  him,  and  though  he 
sat  very  still,  she  must  at  last  have  guessed  at  his 
growing  exhaustion,  for,  raising  herself,  she  drew 
away,  saying,  in  a  dulled  and  gentle  voice:  "Shall  we 
walk  back?  Your  leg  must  be  getting  stiff." 

He  took  her  hand  as  she  stood  beside  him  and 
kissed  it  without  speaking,  and  he  saw  that  she 
turned  her  head  away  then  to  hide  her  tears. 

They  walked  slowly  up  toward  the  house  by  the 
[  55  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

winding  path  among  the  heather.  Wyndwards  stood 
high  and  they  had  to  climb  a  little.  Only  when  they 
drew  near  did  she  speak,  and  in  a  trembling  voice. 

"You've  shown  me  all  the  truth.  I've  been  un 
faithful.  I  am  unfaithful.  If  I'd  loved  him  enough, 
if  I'd  loved  him  as  he  should  have  been  loved,  I 
could  n't  have  fallen  in  love  with  you." 

"Perhaps,"  said  the  young  man. 

"What  I  say  to  myself  is  this,"  Antonia  went  on. 
"If  he  had  been  alive  and  had  gone  away,  as  you 
said,  to  Australia  or  Patagonia,  and  during  his  ab 
sence  I  had  grown  fond  of  you  and  fallen  in  love  — 
what  I  say  to  myself  is  that  of  course  I  should  have 
fought  against  the  feeling  and  avoided  seeing  you, 
and  when  he  came  back  I  should  have  confessed  to 
him  what  had  happened.  And  he  would  have  for 
given  me.  It  would  make  him  very  unhappy;  but  I 
know  that  Malcolm  would  forgive  me." 

"Right  you  are,  my  dear  Tony;  he  would.  And 
you'd  have  fallen  out  of  love  with  me  and  gone  on 
living  happily  ever  after." 

She  ignored  his  jaded  lightness.  "Well  —  isn't  it 
[  56  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

like  that  now?  Can't  I  do  that  now?"  She  stopped  in 
the  little  path  and  her  soft,  exhausted  face  dwelt  on 
him. 

"No,"  said  Bevis  patiently,  but  his  own  exhaustion 
was  in  his  voice;  "it  isn't  like  that  now.  As  I've 
said,  the  difference  is  that  he  won't  come  back;  that 
he  is  dead." 

"But  immortal,  Bevis." 

"I  believe,  immortal." 

"Couldn't  I  in  the  same  way,  when  I  find  him 
again,  confess  and  be  forgiven?" 

"You'd  not  need  to,  my  child."  A  certain  dryness 
was  in  his  voice.  "He  knows  all  about  it,  I  imagine; 
and  more  than  you  do." 

"You  mean  that  he  knows  and  has  forgiven  al 
ready?" 

"He  hasn't  much  to  forgive!"  Bevis  could  not 
repress,  with  a  drier  smile. 

"You  are  unkind." 

"I  know.  Forgive  me,  Tony  dear;  but  you  are 
tormenting.  Don't  let  us  talk  about  it  any  more. 
There's  nothing  to  be  gained  by  it." 
[  57  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

"I  don't  mean  to  be  tormenting.  Is  n't  it  for  your 
sake,  too?" 

"I  can  bear  more,"  he  laughed  now,  "if  you  can 
assure  me  of  that!" 

"There  may  be  a  way  out,  Be  vis;  there  may  be  a 
way  out,  although  you  can't  show  it  to  me,  although 
I  can't  find  it  yet.  Because  you  don't  feel  as  I  do;  and 
you  may  be  right  and  I  wrong.  You  do  believe  that 
everything  is  changed,  quite  changed,  after  we  die? 
You  do  believe  that  it  does  not  hurt  him?" 

He  was  aware,  with  a  dim,  a  tender  irony,  of  the  so 
feminine  impulse  in  her  that,  when  she  no  longer 
found  any  help  in  him,  sought  help  for  herself  in  her 
own  misconceptions  of  his  beliefs.  Irony  deepened  a 
little,  and  tenderness,  as  he  set  her  straight. 

"I  don't  believe  it  hurts  him;  but  I  don't  believe, 
either,  that  everything  is  changed.  It  depends  on 
what  you  call  change." 

"You  believe  it's  all  peace  and  love;  that  people 
there  don't  feel  in  the  way  we  do  here?"  She  was 
supplicating  him. 

"You  might  put  it  like  that,  perhaps,"  he  acqui- 
[  58  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

esced,  "though  even  here  we  feel  peace  and  love 
sometimes."  And,  glancing  up  at  the  house,  as  she 
had  laid  her  hand  on  his  arm,  he  added:  "Miss 
Latimer  is  looking  out  at  us.  Don't  take  your  hand 
off  quickly,  all  the  same." 

She  had  not  controlled  herself,  however,  from 
glancing  round  at  the  house,  in  an  upper  window  of 
which  they  saw  a  curtain  fall. 

"It  makes  no  difference,"  she  said.  "She  must 
know  why  you  are  here.  She  must  know  that  I  am 
very  fond  of  you." 

"You  mean  she  must  know  how  faithless?  There's 
no  point  in  her  thinking  you  faithless  —  unless 
you're  going  to  be,  is  there?"  ^ 

"Why  do  you  gibe  at  me,"  she  murmured,  "and 
taunt  me,  when  I  need  help  most  of  all?  Why  are  you 
so  dry  and  cold?" 

"My  dear,"  he  said,  "I'm  frightfully  tired.  You're 
twice  as  strong  as  I  am,  and  I  think  my  case  is  safer  in 
your  hands  than  in  my  own.  That 's  what  it  comes  to. 
I'm  not  dry  and  cold.  Only  worn  out.  What  I'd  like" 
—  and  putting  his  hand  within  her  arm,  indifferent 
\  59  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

to  the  possible  spectator,  he  glanced  round  at  her 
with  a  smile  half  melancholy  and  half  whimsical  — 
"would  be  to  be  with  you  in  the  firelight  somewhere, 
and  stillness;  and  to  put  my  head  on  your  breast  and 
go  to  sleep,  for  hours  and  hours;  held  in  your  arms. 
Is  that  cold,  Tony?" 


w 


IV 

"AS  one  not,  when  one  could  make  speeches 
like  that,  to  be  listened  to  as  Tony  had  lis 
tened  to  him  —  was  one  not,  implicitly,  an  accepted 
lover?  They  had  hurt  and  misunderstood  each  other 
and  their  talk  had  left  a  strain;  yet  such  hurts,  in 
natures  as  intimately  united  as  his  and  Tony's,  only 
brought  one  the  nearer.  After  all,  in  spite  of  his  es 
sential  failure  with  her,  he  had  shown  her,  in  a  clear 
light,  the  shapes  of  her  half -seen  fears.  That  was  all 
to  the  good.  She  must  now,  for  the  first  time,  accept 
such  fears  fully;  and  might  she  not,  as  a  result,  find 
herself  the  readier  to  live  with  them?  And  though  she 
had  not  seen  his  truth,  he  had,  through  his  very  un- 
kindness,  what  she  had  felt  to  be  his  gibes  and  taunts, 
made  her  see  her  own;  and  Tony's  truth  was,  simply, 
that  she  could  never  give  him  up.  So  he  had  computed 
and  analyzed  during  the  evening,  while  Tony  had 
again  sung  to  them  and  while  Miss  Latimer  sat,  her 
head  bent  beneath  a  lamp,  and  put  fine  darns  into  an 
[  61  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

embroidered  tea-cloth.  And  what  most  came  to  him 
next  morning,  with  the  sense  of  shock,  was  an  aware 
ness  of  hidden  things;  of  hours  in  which  he  had  no 
part,  when  Tony  said  to  him,  "I  talked  to  Cicely  last 
night." 

They  were,  as  usual,  in  the  drawing-room,  after 
breakfast,  and  Antonia  had  seated  herself  on  the  low 
cane  settee  before  the  fire,  for  the  grey  day  was  chilly 
and  she  had,  to  an  unbecoming  extent,  the  look  of 
being  cold.  When  Tony  looked  least  beautiful,  she 
looked  most  childlike,  and  it  was  for  her  childlike  self 
that  he  felt,  always,  his  deepest  tenderness  aroused. 
And  he  was  aware  now,  as  he  meditated  her  an 
nouncement,  of  the  curious  check  it  gave  to  his  ten 
derness.  "Did  you?"  he  said.  His  tone  was  dry.  He 
was  not  glad  to  hear  that  Miss  Latimer  was  in  their 
counsels;  but  it  was  a  more  subtle  disquiet  than  that 
that  took  his  thoughts  from  Tony's  dear  pouting 
lips  and  tightened  eyelids.  Miss  Latimer  had  all  sorts 
of  chances  that  he  did  n't  have.  His  love  was  like 
a  steady  vase  into  which  Tony's  fluidity  inevitably 
poured  and  shaped  itself  when  he  was  with  her.  But 
f  62  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

when  he  was  not  there,  Miss  Latimer  had  spells  that 
dissolved  her  again  into  wistful,  wandering  water. 

"I  did  n't  tell  her,  of  course,  that  I  was  in  love  with 
you  and  was  wondering  whether  I  might  marry  you," 
Antonia  went  on,  "though  I  think  she  must  know  it. 
I  said  nothing  about  myself,  really.  What  we  talked 
of  was  immortality.  I  asked  her  what  she  believed." 

He  kept  his  eyes  upon  her,  though  she  did  not  meet 
them,  standing  before  her,  his  cigarette  between  his 
teeth.  And  she  felt  his  displeasure  in  his  silence. 

"She  does  n't  think  as  you  do,"  Antonia  went  on, 
in  a  carefully  steady  voice.  "I  mean,  her  belief  is 
much  more  definite  than  yours ;  much  deeper;  for  she 's 
always  believed,  and  you,  I  think,  from  what  you  told 
me,  have  n't;  —  and,  oh,  passionate.  I  can't  express 
to  you  how  I  felt  that.  A  white  flame  of  certitude." 

"Ah,"  Bevis  murmured.  He  knocked  the  ash  from 
his  cigarette  and  examined  the  tip.  "No;  I've  no 
white  flames  about  me." 

She  did  not  pause  for  his  irony.  "And  we  spoke  of 
Malcolm.  We  never  have  spoken  of  him  before.  I 
asked  her  if  she  expected  to  see  him  again,  as  she 
f  63  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

knew  him  here;  unchanged.  And  she  does.  No;  expect 
is  not  the  right  word.  She  is  sure  of  it.  And  she  told 
me  something  else.  Malcolm  believed  like  that.  He 
and  she  had  talked  about  it;  twice.  Once  when  he  was 
hardly  more  than  a  boy.  And  once  before  he  went  to 
France,  on  the  last  night  he  spent  here,  with  her  and 
his  mother.  He  was  sure,  too.  He  believed  that  he  was 
to  see  me,  and  her,  again.  Cicely  cried  and  cried  in 
telling  me.  I  never  saw  her  cry  before." 

"Did  Malcolm  ever  talk  to  you  about  it?"  Be  vis 
asked  her  after  a  moment.  If  he  had  computed  and 
analyzed  new  hopes  last  night,  how  much  more,  this 
morning,  he  found  himself  analyzing  and  computing 
new  difficulties.  He  had  more  than  Tony's  fluidity  to 
deal  with  now.  Like  a  tragic,  potent  moon,  Miss 
Latimer  drew  her  tides  away  from  the  rest  and  safety 
of  the  shores  he  stretched  for  them. 

"No,"  she  answered,  still  in  the  careful,  steady 
voice.  "Never  like  that.  Though  I  remember,  in 
looking  back,  things  he  said  that  meant  it." 

He  recognized  then,  and  only  then,  when  she  an 
swered  with  such  unsuspecting  candour,  the  treacher- 
[  64  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

ous  suggestion  that  had  underlain  his  query.  Could 
he  really  have  wanted  to  hint  that  Malcolm's  deepest 
confidence  had  been  given  to  his  cousin  and  not  to 
her?  Could  he  really  have  hoped  that  a  touch  of 
spiritual  jealousy  might  help  him?  How  complete 
her  trust  in  her  husband,  and  how  justified,  was 
further  revealed  to  him,  for  his  discomfiture,  as  she 
went  on:  "It  was  of  me  they  talked  that  last  night; 
of  our  love  for  each  other.  He  wanted  to  thank  her, 
again,  for  having  helped  him  to  win  me." 

They  were  silent  for  a  little  after  that;  he  cast 
down  upon  the  sofa  beside  the  fire  and  Antonia  on 
her  settee,  her  hands  holding  it  on  either  side,  her 
eyes  fixed  before  her,  a  new  hardness  in  their  gaze. 
She  was,  this  morning,  neither  the  frightened  child 
nor  the  helpless  lover.  She  had  withdrawn  from  him, 
and  whether  in  coldness  or  control  he  could  not  tell. 
But  it  was  not  with  her  own  strength  she  was  armed. 
She  had  withdrawn  in  order  to  think,  without  his 
help,  and  with  the  help  of  Miss  Latimer. 

"Well,  what  does  it  all  come  to  for  you,  now?"  he 
asked,  and  he  heard  the  coldness  in  his  voice,  a  cold- 
[  65  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

ness  not  for  her,  but  for  that  new  opponent  he  had 
now  to  deal  with. 

"It  makes  it  all  more  terrible,  doesn't  it?"  she 
said,  sitting  there  and  not  looking  at  him. 

"You  mean  her  belief  has  so  much  more  weight 
with  you  than  mine?" 

"Does  it  contradict  yours?" 

"You  know  it  does;  or  why  should  things  be  more 
difficult  —  terrible  you  call  them  —  for  you  this 
morning?  You  say  she  is  more  definite  than  I  am.  I 
think  definiteness  in  such  matters  pure  illusion,  and 
I  only  ask  you  to  realize  that  it's  easy  to  a  simple 
nature  like  Miss  Latimer's.  She  is  unaware  of  the 
complexity  of  the  problem." 

"You  think  that  Malcolm,  too,  was  so  simple?" 

"I  do.  Not  so  simple  as  Miss  Latimer;  but  simpler 
than  you,  and  you  know  it;  and  far  simpler  than  I  am; 
and  you  know  that,  too,  my  dear." 

She  sought  no  dispute.  Almost  with  a  hard  patience 
she  went  on.  "Wasn't  their  definiteness  intuition 
rather  than  illusion?  Is  n't  intuition  easier  for  the 
simple  than  for  the  complex?" 
[  66  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

"Intuition  isn't  definiteness;  that's  just  what  it 
is  n't.  As  for  it's  being  easier;  everything  is  easier,  of 
course,  to  simple  people."  She,  like  himself,  and  she 
had  admitted  it,  was  complex;  yet  his  terrible  dis 
advantage  with  her  was  that,  while  too  clever  to  be 
satisfied  by  anything  she  did  not  understand,  she  was 
too  ignorant,  really,  to  understand  the  cogency  of 
what  he  might  have  found  to  say.  Miss  Latimer's 
simplicities  would  have  more  weight  with  her. 

"Something  must  be  definite,"  she  said.  "Immor 
tality  means  nothing  unless  it  can  in  some  way  be 
defined.  It  must  mean  a  person,  and  a  person  means 
memory,  feeling,  will.  So,  if  Malcolm  is  immortal,  he 
exists  now,  as  he  existed  here;  unchanged;  loving  me, 
as  he  told  Cicely  he  should  always  love  me;  and  wait 
ing  for  me,  as  he  told  her  he  would  wait."  She  had 
come  back  to  it  and  Miss  Latimer  had  fixed  her 
in  it. 

"Perhaps  he's  fallen  in  love  with  some  one  else," 
Bevis  suggested.  "You've  changed  to  that  extent, 
after  all.  And  you  are  not  longing  for  him.  Quite  the 
contrary." 

[67] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

Somehow  he  could  not  control  these  exhibitions  of 
his  exasperation,  nor  could  he  unsay  them,  ashamed 
of  them  as  he  immediately  was. 

Her  dark  gaze  rested  on  him  at  last,  unresentful 
still,  but  with,  at  last,  an  almost  recognized  hostility. 
He  was  ashamed,  yet  more  exasperated  than  ever  as 
he  saw  it. 

"It's  almost  as  if  you  tried  to  insult  me  with  my 
infidelity,"  she  murmured.  "It's  as  if,  already,  you 
had  no  respect  for  me  because  you  know  I  am  un 
faithful.  Take  care,  Be  vis,  for,  after  all,  I  may  get 
over  you." 

"And  I  may  get  over  you,"  he  said,  looking  not  at 
her,  but  at  the  fire  and  slightly  wagging  his  remain 
ing  foot,  crossed  over  the  artificial  knee. 

She  was  very  silent  at  that,  and,  shame  deepening 
and  anger  dropping  (it  was  n't  anger  against  her; 
she  must  know  that)  he  glanced  up  at  her  and  found 
her  gaze  still  on  him. 

"My  dear,"  he  muttered,  smiling  wryly,  "you 
stick  your  needles  too  deeply  into  my  heart.  What 's 
sport  to  you  is  death  to  me.  —  No;  I  don't  mean 
[  68  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

that.  —  All  I  really  mean  is  that  we  must  n't  be  like 
children  in  a  nursery  slapping  at  each  other.  You're 
as  unlikely  to  get  over  me  as  I  am  to  get  over  you, 
and  I  ask  you,  in  deep  seriousness,  to  accept  that  fact 
with  all  its  implications.  There  it  is  and  what  are  you 
going  to  do  with  it  and  with  me?" 

She  had  now  risen  from  her  seat  and  walked  away 
from  him,  vaguely,  and  she  went  toward  the  third 
window  and  stood  looking  out. 

She  stood  there  a  long  time,  without  moving,  and, 
remembering  what  she  had  said  to  him  of  it  the  other 
day,  and  of  her  fear,  a  discomfort  —  yet,  compara 
tively,  it  was  a  comfort  to  feel  it  after  their  personal 
dispute  —  stirred  him,  so  that,  rising,  with  a  sigh,  he 
followed  her,  and,  as  he  had  done  the  other  day, 
looked  out  over  her  shoulder  at  the  cedar,  the  foun 
tain,  and  the  white  fritillaries  in  their  narrow  beds. 
He  saw  from  her  fixed  face  that  she  had  forgotten  her 
fear  of  the  harmless  scene.  Her  gaze,  with  its  new, 
cold  grief,  was  straight  before  her. 

"Tony;  dear  Tony,"  he  said,  laying  his  hand  on  her 
shoulder.  She  did  not  move  or  look  at  him. 
f  69  1 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

"Let's  go  away/'  he  said.  "Let's  leave  this  place. 
It 's  bad  for  us  both.  Sell  it.  Give  it  to  Miss  Latimer. 
Chuck  it  all,  Tony,  and  start  a  new  life  with  me. 
Chuck  the  whole  ghoulish  business  of  Malcolm  and 
his  feelings  and  your  own  infidelity.  It  has  nothing  to 
do  with  love  and  heaven;  really  it  has  n't.  You'll  see 
it  yourself  some  day.  Let 's  go  away  at  once,  darling, 
and  get  married."  The  urgency  of  what  he  now  saw 
as  escape  was  suddenly  so  strong  in  him  that  he 
really  meant  it,  really  planned,  while  he  spoke,  the 
Southern  flight;  Tony  deposited  at  her  safe  London 
house  that  very  evening  and  the  license  bought  next 
day.  Why  not?  Was  n't  it  the  only  way  with  her?  As 
long  as  she  was  allowed  to  hesitate,  her  feet  would 
remain  fixed  in  this  quagmire. 

She  hardly  heard  his  words;  he  saw  that  as  she 
turned  her  eyes  on  him ;  but  she  heard  his  ardour  and 
it  had  broken  down  her  withdrawal. 

"I'm  so  frightened,  Be  vis,"  she  murmured.  "You 

don't  understand.  You  are  so  bitter;  so  cruel.  You 

frighten  me  more  than  I  can  tell  you.  I  seemed  to  see, 

just  now,  when  you  said  that,  about  getting  over  me, 

[  70  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

that  I  should  lose  your  love,  and  his  love,  too;  that 
that  would  be  my  punishment." 

This,  after  all,  was  a  fear  easy  to  deal  with.  He 
passed  his  arm  in  hers  and  drew  her  from  the  window, 
feeling  a  foretaste  of  the  final  triumph  as  he  did  so, 
for,  child,  adorable  child  that  she  was,  she  had  for 
gotten  already  the  former  fear. 

"But  you  know  what  a  nasty,  cantankerous  crea 
ture  I  am,  darling,"  he  said,  making  her  walk  up  and 
down  with  him.  "You  don't  really  take  my  flings  se 
riously.  And  did  n't  you  begin !  How  like  a  woman ! 
What  a  woman  you  are !  You  know  that  I  shan't  get 
over  you.  And  I  assure  you  that  I  don't  think  less 
well  of  Malcolm's  fidelity." 

"But  the  bitterness,  Bevis.  Why  were  you  so  bit 
ter?"  Her  voice  trembled.  "I  am  never  bitter  with 
you." 

"And  I'm  never  bitter  with  you  —  though  I'm 
a  bitter  person,  which  you  are  n't.  You  know  per 
fectly  well  that  it  was  Miss  Latimer  whose  neck  I 
wanted  to  wring.  —  Beastly  little  stone-curlew,  with 
her  stare  and  her  wailing." 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"It  felt  like  my  neck.  Was  it  only  Cicely's,  then? 
Poor  little  Cicely." 

"Poor  little  Cicely  as  much  as  you  please.  Only  I  'm 
sick  of  her,  and  want  to  get  away  from  her,  and  to 
get  you  away.  Seriously,  Tony,  why  should  n't  we  be 
off  at  once?" 

"At  once?"  Her  wavering  smile,  while  her  eyes 
dwelt  on  him,  showed  the  plaintive  sweetness  of 
reviving  confidence.  "But  that's  impossible,  dear, 
absurd  Be  vis." 

"Why  impossible?" 

"Why  I  could  n't  get  married  like  that;  at  a  day's 
notice.  And  I  could  n't  run  away.  I  'm  not  afraid  of 
Cicely,  though  you  seem  to  be.  And  I  could  n't  leave 
her  like  that,  when  I  've  only  just  arrived.  It  would 
be  too  unkind." 

The  fact  that  she  felt  it  necessary  to  argue  it  all 
out  was  in  itself  a  good  augury.  He  could  afford  to 
relinquish  his  project,  though  he  did  so  reluctantly. 
"I'm  not  afraid  of  her,"  he  said.  "Except  when  she 
frightens  you." 

"  She  does  n't,  Bevis.  You  are  the  only  one  who 
[  72  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

frightens  me;  when  you  tell  me  the  truth;  when  you 
tell  me  that  I  am  unfaithful  and  that  I've  fallen  in 
love  with  you,  although  my  husband  is  n't  really 
dead;  and  that  perhaps,  if  I  go  on  tormenting  you 
too  much,  you'll  get  over  me."  She  looked  steadily 
at  him  while  she  spoke,  though  still  she  tried  to  smile. 

"Do  you  want  another  truth,  Tony?"  he  said, 
putting  her  hair  back  from  her  forehead,  doting  on 
her,  in  her  loveliness,  her  foolishness,  her  pathos, 
while  he  drew  her  more  closely  to  him;  "it's  the  last 
that  frightens  you  most  of  all,  and  it  never  can  come 
true." 

"Never?  Never?"  she  whispered,  while  she,  too, 
came  closer,  yielding  to  his  arms.  "  Nothing  can 
ever  come  between  us?  You  will  be  able  to  take  care 
of  me,  always?" 

"It's  all  I  ask,"  he  assured  her,  with  his  dry,  cher 
ishing  smile. 


HE  had  learned  to  distrust  Antonia's  recov 
eries,  but  that  evening  it  would  have  been 
difficult  to  believe  that  their  troubles  were  not  over. 
The  very  drawing-room,  as  they  came  back  to  it  after 
dinner,  looked,  he  felt,  like  the  drawing-room  of  a 
lovely  young  widow  who  was  soon  to  marry  again. 
It  seemed,  with  clustered  candles,  and  flowers  where 
he  had  never  seen  them  before,  no  longer  to  wait 
upon  events,  but  to  celebrate  them,  and  Antonia 
herself,  standing  before  the  fire  and  knitting,  in  ab 
surd  contrast  to  her  bare  arms  and  pearl-clasped  hair, 
a  charity  sock,  had  herself  an  air  of  celebration  and 
decision.  It  was  for  him,  he  felt,  that  her  hair  had 
been  so  clasped,  and,  as  she  knew  he  loved  to  see  it, 
tossed  back  from  her  brow.  For  him,  too,  the  dress 
as  of  a  Charles  the  First  lady,  with  falls  of  lace  at 
elbow  and  the  lace-edged  cape  held  with  diamonds 
and  pearls  at  her  breast.  Long  pearls  were  in  her  ears 
—  he  had  not  seen  them  there  since  before  the  war  — 
f  74  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

and  pearls  around  her  throat,  and,  beloved  and  un 
accountable  creature,  why,  unless  in  some  valiant  re 
action  to  life  and  sanity,  should  she  show  this  revival? 

"What  shall  we  do  to  amuse  ourselves  to-night, 
Cicely?"  she  asked.  She  had  never  asked  it  before.  It 
had  never  before  been  a  question  of  amusing  them 
selves.  But,  though  Miss  Latimer,  evidently,  had 
"cried  and  cried,"  she  herself  was  not  without  signs 
of  the  evening's  magic.  Her  little  pre-war  dress, 
pathetic  in  its  arrested  fashion,  its  unused  richness, 
became  her.  She,  too,  wore  pearls,  and  she,  too,  oddly, 
with  the  straight  line  of  her  fringe  across  her  fore 
head,  recalled,  all  pinched  and  pallid  though  she 
was,  the  court  of  Charles  the  First.  No  one  could 
have  looked  less  likely  to  be  amused,  yet  she  struck 
him,  to-night,  as  almost  charming. 

"Shall  we  have  some  dummy-bridge?"  Antonia 
went  on.  "Cicely  is  very  good  at  bridge,  Bevis." 

"By  all  means,"  said  the  young  man,  smiling 
across  at  her  from  the  sofa  where  he  smoked.  "Shall 
I  get  a  table?" 

He  would  really  rather,  he  felt,  for  a  little  while, 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

sit  and  smoke,  his  hands  clasped  behind  his  head, 
and  watch  Antonia's  hands  move  delicately  among 
the  knitting-needles. 

"Or,"  she  went  on,  starting  a  new  row  of  her 
sock,  "shall  it  be  table-turning?  Cicely  is  good  at 
that,  too.  It  always  turns  for  her.  Do  you  remember 
the  fun  we've  had  with  it,  Cicely?  The  night  the 
Austins  dined  and  it  hopped  into  the  corner.  And  the 
night  it  rapped  out  that  rude  message  to  Mr.  Foster. 
I  feel  a  little  stupid  for  bridge." 

"Yes.  I  remember.  He  was  very  much  displeased," 
said  Miss  Latimer. 

"Comically  displeased.  He  took  it  all  so  seriously 
—  though  he  pretended  not  to  mind.  Do  you  feel 
like  trying  it,  Cicely?  You  are  the  medium,  of  course. 
It  never  did  anything  without  you." 

Miss  Latimer  did  not,  for  some  moments,  raise  her 
eyes  from  the  fire.  She  seemed  to  deliberate.  When 
she  looked  up  it  was  to  say,  "One  hardly  could,  with 
only  three." 

"Why,  we  were  only  three  when  it  went  so  well, 
with  you  and  me  and  poor  Mr.  Foster." 
[76] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"I  imagine  he  had  power." 

"Well,  Bevis  may  have  power.  Have  you  ever 
sat,  Bevis?" 

"Once  or  twice.  I'm  sure  I  have  no  power.  And 
it's  not  a  game  I  like."  He  felt,  as  he  spoke,  that  he 
disliked  it  very  much.  So  strongly  did  he  dislike  it 
that  he  wondered  at  Antonia  for  her  suggestion. 

"Why,  how  solemn  you  are,  Bevis!  It's  only  a 
game,  as  you  say.  I  believe  you  really  are  a  little 
scared  of  it,  like  Mr.  Foster,  and  think  it  may  rap 
out  something  rude.  You  have  a  guilty  secret,  Bevis ! " 

"Many,  no  doubt." 

"You  do  believe  in  it,  then?  —  that  it's  super 
natural?" 

From  his  sofa,  over  his  cigarette-smoke,  his  eye 
at  this  met  hers  with  a  sort  of  reminder,  half  grim, 
half  weary.  "Still  catechisms?"  it  asked  her. 

She  laughed,  and  now  he  knew  that  in  her  laugh 
he  heard  bravado. 

"As  if  a  game  could  be ! "  she  answered  herself.  "At 
the  worst  it's  only  Cicely's  subconscious  trickery. 
Is  n't  it,  Cicely?  Are  you  tired?  Will  you  try  it?  I'm 
[  77  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

longing  for  it  now.  It's  just  what  we  need.  It  will  do 
us  good." 

"I  am  not  tired.  But  why  do  you  think  a  game  will 
do  us  good,  Antonia?"  Miss  Latimer  asked. 

Antonia  looked  down  at  her  fondly;  but  did  he  not 
now  detect  the  fever  in  her  eye.  "Games  are  good 
for  dreary  people.  We  are  all  dreary,  are  n't  we?  I 
know,  at  least,  that  I  am.  So  be  kind,  both  of  you, 
and  play  with  me." 

"Miss  Latimer  is  tired,"  said  Bevis,  looking  across 
at  her,  feeling  reluctance  in  her  colourless  replies. 
"And  I'm  tired,  too.  We'd  both  rather,  far,  play 
bridge." 

But  to  this  Miss  Latimer  at  once  said  coldly:  "  No, 
I  am  not  tired.  Bridge  is  the  more  tiring  of  the  two." 

"Of  course  it  is.  We  can  all  go  to  sleep  around  the 
table,  if  we  like.  It's  in  the  corridor,  is  n't  it?  I'll  get 
it."  Antonia  tossed  aside  her  knitting  and  moved 
away. 

For  a  moment,  after  she  had  left  the  room,  the 
young  man  sat  on,  his  hands  still  clasped  behind  his 
head,  and  contemplated  Miss  Latimer,  meditating  a 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

further  appeal.  But  her  pale  little  profile,  fixed  im 
passively  on  the  fire,  offered  no  hint  of  response. 
Much  as  she  might  dislike  the  game,  she  would  never 
take  sides  with  him  against  Antonia.  Any  appeal 
that  might  be  made  must  be  to  Antonia  herself,  and, 
after  the  moment's  pause,  he  rose  and  limped  after 
her. 

She  was  outside  in  the  broad  balustraded  corridor 
from  which  one  looked  down  into  the  hall,  and  she 
had  lifted  a  bowl  of  flowers  from  a  little  mahogany 
table  that  stood  there. 

Bevis  closed  the  door  behind  him.  He,  also,  laid  his 
hands  on  the  table,  arresting  her. 
-•   "Tony,"  he  said,  "give  it  up."  The  door  was 
closed,  but  he  spoke  in  a  low  voice.  "I  don't  like  it." 

"Why  not?"  She,  too,  spoke  in  a  low  voice;  and 
she  stood  still,  her  eyes  on  his. 

"I  don't  like  it,"  he  repeated.  "It's  not  right.  Not 
now.  After  what's  happened  in  these  years." 

Oh,  what  a  blunder!  What  a  cursed  blunder!  He 
saw,  as  he  spoke  the  words,  the  fire  they  lighted  in 
her.  She  had  been  an  actress,  dressed  for  a  part,  pre- 
[  79  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

tending  gaiety  and  revival  to  inveigle  him  into  an 
experiment.  Over  the  table,  her  hands  hard  grasped 
upon  the  edge,  she  kept  her  eyes  fixed  on  him. 

"You  do  believe  in  it,  then?  —  That  the  spirits  of 
the  dead  speak  through  it?" 

Cursed  blunder!  How  pale  she  had  become,  as  if 
beneath  the  actress's  rouge.  There  was  no  laughter 
left,  or  pretence  of  gaiety. 

"No:  I  don't  believe  it's  spirits.  I  believe,  as  you 
said,  that  it's  subconscious  trickery.  And  it's  not  a 
time  to  mess  about  with  it.  That 'sail.  It's  ugly:  out 
of  place." 

"If  it's  only  that  —  subconscious  trickery  — 
that 's  what  I  believe  too  —  why  should  you  mind  so 
much;  —  or  even  ugliness?" 

"And  why  should  you  want  so  much  to  do  it,  if 
that's  all  you  believe?  It's  because  you  believe 
more,  or  are  afraid  of  more,  that  I  ask  you  to  give 
it  up." 

"But  is  n't  that  the  very  reason  why  you  should 
consent?  So  that  my  mind  may  be  set  at  rest?  Don't 
be  angry  with  me,  Bevis.  That  frightens  me  more 
[  80] 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

than  anything  —  as  you  told  me.  I  am  not  afraid 
of  this,  unless  you  make  me  so  by  taking  it  so 
seriously." 

She  had  him  there,  neatly.  And  why  should  he 
mind  so  much?  He  did  mind,  horridly.  But  that  was 
all  the  more  reason  for  pretending  not  to. 

"  Very  well,"  he  said  dryly.  " I  'm  not  angry.  I  don't 
consent,  though;  I  submit.  Here;  let  me  carry  it  for 
you." 

But  he  had  forgotten  his  leg.  He  stumbled  as  he 
lifted  the  table  and  could  only  help  Antonia  carry 
it  into  the  room  and  set  it  down  before  the  fire. 

"There;  it  will  do  nicely  there,"  said  Antonia. 
"And  those  three  little  chairs."  Her  voice  was  still 
unsteady. 

Miss  Latimer  looked  round  at  them  as  they  en 
tered,  and  then  rose.  "Is  n't  this  table  a  little  rick 
ety?"  she  asked,  placing  her  finger-tips  upon  it  and 
slightly  shaking  it. 

"It's  the  one  we  always  use,"  said  Antonia.  "It's 
quite  solid.  If  you  wanted  to  tip  it,  you  could  n't." 

"I've  seen  larger  and  firmer  tables  tipped,  by  peo- 
[  81  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

pie  who  wanted  to,"  said  Miss  Latimer.  "I  have,  I 
am  sorry  to  say,  often  seen  people  cheat  at  table- 
turning." 

"You  don't  suspect  Bevis,  or  me,  I  hope!"  laughed 
Antonia,  taking  her  place. 

"Not  at  all.  But  people  don't  suspect  themselves," 
said  Miss  Latimer.  She,  too,  sat  down. 

"It's  very  good  of  you,  of  both  of  you,  to  humour 
me,"  said  Antonia,  still  laughing.  "I  promise  you 
both  not  to  cheat." 

"Shall  I  put  out  the  lamps?"  asked  Bevis  coldly. 

And  it  was  still  Antonia  who  directed  the  installa 
tion,  replying:  "Oh,  no;  that's  not  at  all  necessary. 
We  have  never  sat  in  the  dark.  It  was  broad  day 
light,  before  tea,  with  Mr.  Foster." 

Bevis  took  his  place  and  they  laid  hands  lightly 
upon  the  table. 

"And  we  may  go  on  talking,"  Antonia  added. 

But  they  did  not  talk.  As  if  the  very  spirit  of 

«*. 

dumbness  had  emanated  from  their  outspread  hands, 

they  sat  silent  and  Bevis  felt  at  once  the  muffled 

rhythm  of  their  hearts  beating  in  syncopated  meas- 

[82] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

ure.  The  pulsations  were  heavy  in  his  finger-tips  and 
seemed  to  be  sending  little  electric  currents  into  the 
wood  beneath  them.  Observant,  sceptical,  and,  with 
it  all,  exasperated,  he  watched  himself  and  felt  sure 
that  soon  the  table,  yielding  to  some  interplay  of 
force,  would  begin  to  tip.  Long  moments  passed,  how 
ever,  and  it  did  not  stir,  and  after  his  first  intense 
anticipation  his  attention  dropped,  with  a  sense  of 
comparative  relief,  to  more  familiar  uses.  He  had  not 
looked  at  either  of  his  companions,  but  he  now  be 
came  aware  of  them,  of  their  breathing  and  their 
heart-beats,  with  an  intimacy  which,  he  felt,  turning 
his  thoughts  curiously,  savoured  of  the  unlawful. 
People  were  not  meant  to  be  aware  of  each  other 
after  such  a  fashion,  with  consciousness  fallen  far 
below  the  normal  mental  meeting-ground  to  the 
fundamental  crucibles  of  the  organism,  where  the 
physical  machinery  and  the  psychical  personality 
became  so  mysteriously  intermingled.  There,  in  the 
first  place  —  it  pleased  him  to  trace  it  out,  and  he  was 
glad  to  keep  his  mind  occupied  —  there  lay  the  basis 
of  his  objection  to  the  ambiguous  pastime.  As  he 
[83] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

meditated  it,  his  awareness  of  this  intimacy  became 
so  troubling  that,  withdrawing  his  thoughts  from  it 
decisively,  he  fixed  them  upon  the  mere  visual  per 
ception  of  Antonia's  hands,  and  Miss  Latimer's. 
Miss  Latimer's  were  small,  dry,  light.  The  thumb 
curled  back,  the  palm  was  broad,  the  finger-tips  were 
squared,  though  narrow.  He  had  no  link  with  them, 
no  clue  to  them,  and,  though  he  strove  to  see  them  as 
objects  only,  as  pale  patterns  on  the  dark  wood,  he 
was  aware,  disagreeably,  that  he  shrank  from  them 
and  their  hidden  yet  felt  significance. 

Antonia's  hands  he  knew  so  well.  But  he  was  not 
to  rest  in  the  mere  contemplation  of  their  beauty. 
Everywhere,  to-night,  the  veils  of  appearance  were 
melting  before  the  emergence  of  operative  yet,  till 
now,  unrecognized  reality;  and  so  it  was  that  An 
tonia's  hands,  as  he  looked  at  them,  ceased  to  express 
her  soft,  sweet  life,  its  delicacy,  its  mournfulness,  its 
merriment,  and,  like  the  breathing  and  the  heart 
beats,  conveyed  to  him  the  mysterious  and  funda 
mental  sources  of  her  being,  all  in  her  most  potent 
and  most  unconscious.  Laid  out  upon  the  darkness, 
[  84  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

they  were  piteous  hands ;  helpless  and  abandoned  to 
destiny. 

And  his  own?  Small,  delicately  fashioned,  if  reso 
lute,  they  expressed  his  own  personality  in  what  it 
had  of  closest  and  most  alien.  He  did  not  like  himself, 
seen  at  these  close  quarters,  or,  rather,  he  frightened 
himself.  The  physical  machinery  was  too  fragile  an 
apparatus  in  his  construction.  It  did  not  secure  him 
sufficiently.  It  did  not  sufficiently  secure  Antonia. 
Nerves  rather  than  flesh  and  blood  made  his  strength, 
and  flesh  and  blood,  dogged,  confident,  and  blind, 
was  a  better  barrier  against  fear  than  mere  intelli 
gence.  There  was  more  fear  in  him  now  than  in 
Antonia,  or  he  was  more  aware  of  what  was  to  be 
feared  —  which  came  to  the  same  thing.  While  she 
wandered  sadly  in  dreams  and  abandoned  herself  to 
peril  because  she  did  not  know  where  peril  lay,  he 
saw  and  felt  reality,  sharply,  subtly,  like  a  scent 
upon  the  breeze,  like  a  shadow  cast  by  an  unseen 
presence;  and  because  he  was  so  subtle,  so  con 
scious,  and  so  resolute,  he  was  responsible.  That  was 
what  it  came  to  for  him,  with  a  suddenness  that  had 
F  85  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

in  it  an  element  of  physical  shock.  It  was  he  alone 
who  saw  where  peril  lay  and  he  alone  who  could 
withhold  Antonia  from  thus  spreading  her  spirit 
upon  the  darkness. 

He  looked  back  at  her  hands  and  a  pang  of  terror 
sped  through  him.  Something  had  happened  to  them ; 
something  had  passed  from  them,  or  into  them.  He 
was  an  ass,  of  course,  an  impressionable,  nervous  ass; 
yet  he  saw  them  as  doomed,  unresisting  creatures; 
and,  while  he  still  controlled  himself  to  think,  feeling 
himself  infected  with  the  virus  of  the  horrid  game,  the 
table  suddenly,  as  if  with  a  long-drawn,  welling  sigh, 
stirred,  rose  —  he  felt  it  rising  under  his  fingers  — 
and  slowly  tipped  toward  Miss  Latimer. 

It  was  then  Antonia  who  said,  as  if  with  frivolity, 
"We're  off!"  Miss  Latimer  sat  silent,  her  head  bent 
down  in  an  attitude  brooding  and  remote. 

The  table,  returning  to  the  level,  after  a  pause 
rocked  slowly  to  and  fro.  "Cicely,  if  it  raps,  will  you 
say  the  alphabet  for  it,  while  I  spell?"  Antonia  mur 
mured.  He  recognized  the  forced  commonplace  of 
her  voice.  Miss  Latimer  bowed  her  head  in  answer. 
[  86] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

The  table  rocked  more  and  more  violently.  Anto- 
nia  had  half  to  rise  in  her  chair  to  keep  her  hands 
upon  it  as  it  tipped  from  her  toward  Miss  Latimer. 
Then,  as  suddenly  as  it  had  begun,  it  was  still,  and 
then  he  heard  a  soft  yet  sharp  report,  as  if  of  a  small 
electric  shock  in  the  very  wood  itself.  —  One,  two, 
three;  a  pause;  and  —  One,  two,  three,  again.  A 
rhythm  distinct  and  detestable. 

Conjecture  raced  through  his  mind.  He  had  said 
that  he  had  played  the  game;  but  he  had  only  seen 
the  table  turned  and  tipped;  he  had  never  heard 
these  sounds.  Unable  to  distrust  his  senses,  though 
aware  that  any  one  else's  he  would  have  distrusted, 
he  located  them  in  the  very  wood  under  their  hands. 
They  did  not  come  from  Miss  Latimer's  toe-joints; 
nor  from  his  or  Tony's.  Well,  what  of  it?  It  was  some 
oddity  of  magnetism,  like  the  tipping,  and,  now  that 
the  experience  was  actually  upon  them,  he  felt,  rather 
than  any  panic,  a  dry,  almost  a  light  curiosity,  seeing, 
with  relief  for  his  delay,  that  to  have  interfered,  to 
have  stopped  the  game  and  made  a  row,  would  have 
been  to  dignify  it  and  fix  it  in  Tony's  unsatisfied 
[  87  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

mind  stamped  with  a  fear  more  definite  than  any  she 
had  felt. 

"Are  you  there?"  Miss  Latimer  was  saying,  in  a 
prim,  automatic  voice,  as  of  one  long  accustomed  to 
these  communions  —  "One  for  No,  and  three  for  Yes 
and  two  for  Uncertain.  Is  that  agreed?" 

The  table  rapped  three  times. 

"Are  you  ready?  Shall  I  begin  the  alphabet?" 

Again  three  raps. 

Her  voice  now  altered.  It  was  almost  dreamily, 
with  head  bent  down,  that  she  began,  evenly,  to 
enumerate  the  letters.  "A,  B"  —  a  rap  fell  neatly  at 
the  second  sound.  "B,"  Antonia  announced.  Miss 
Latimer  resumed:  "A,  B,  C,  D,  E"  —  another  rap 
arrested  her. 

"Oh  —  it  is  going  to  be  *  Be  vis'!  —  It's  for  you, 
Be  vis!"  Antonia  murmured. 

"Rap!"  said  the  table. 

"That  is  No.  It  is  not  for  Captain  Saltonhall," 
said  Miss  Latimer  drowsily  and,  drowsily,  she  took 
up  the  alphabet.  The  table,  uninterrupted  by  any 
comment,  spelled  out  the  word,  "Beside." 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

"Beside.  How  odd,"  said  Antonia. 

It  was  very  wearisome.  Already  they  seemed  to 
have  sat  there  for  hours.  His  fear  had  not  returned; 
but  curiosity  no  longer  consciously  sustained  him. 
An  insufferable  languor,  rather,  fell  upon  him  and 
fumes  of  sleep  seemed  to  coil  heavily  about  his  eye 
lids.  He  wished  he  could  have  a  cigarette.  He  wished 
the  thing  would  go  more  quickly  and  be  over. 

"T,H,E,"  had  been  spelled  out  and  Antonia  had 
reported  "the."  Miss  Latimer's  drugged  voice  had 
taken  up  the  alphabet  again  and  the  table  had  rapped 
at  "F." 

Now  the  word  demanded  nearly  the  whole  alphabet 
for  the  finding  of  its  letters.  "O"  came.  Then  "U." 

Antonia  sat  still.  Her  eyes  were  fixed,  strangely, 
devouringly,  upon  Miss  Latimer,  whose  head,  droop 
ing  forward,  seemed  that  of  a  swooning  person. 
"F,O,U,N,T,"  she  spelt. 

Not  till  then  did  it  flash  upon  him,  and  it  came 
from  Antonia's  face  rather  than  from  the  half- 
forgotten  phrase. 

He  sprang  up,  stumbling,  nearly  falling,  catching 
[  89  1 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

at  Antonia's  shoulder  to  right  himself.  "Stop  the 
damned  thing!"  he  exclaimed,  and  he  lifted  her 
hands.  "It's  quoting  you!" 

Miss  Latimer's  hands  slid  into  her  lap.  She  sat  as 
if  profoundly  asleep. 

Antonia  rose  from  her  place,  and  at  last  she  looked 
at  him.  "Beside  the  fountain.  Beside  the  fountain. 
He  is  there,"  she  said. 

He  had  seized  her  arms  now  as  if  to  hold  her  back 
more  forcibly. 

"Nonsense!"  he  cried  loudly.  "Miss  Latimer  is  a 
medium  —  as  you  know.  Her  subconsciousness  got 
at  yours.  They  are  the  words  you  used  the  other 
morning." 

"He  is  there,"  she  repeated;  "and  I  must  see  him. 
He  has  come  for  me.  And  I  must  see  him." 

He  held  her  for  a  moment  longer,  measuring  his 
fear  by  hers.  Then,  releasing  her,  "Very  well,"  he 
said.  "I'll  come  too.  We  shall  see  nothing."  But  he 
was  not  sure. 

They  crossed  the  room,  Antonia  swiftly  going  be 
fore  him.  She  paused  so  that  he  might  come  up  with 
[  90  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

her  before  she  drew  back  the  curtain  from  the  third 
window.  The  moon  was  high.  The  cedar  was  black 
against  the  brightness.  They  looked  down  into  the 
flagged  garden  and  saw  the  empty  moonlight.  Empty. 
Nothing  was  there. 

"Are  you  satisfied?"  Bevis  asked  her.  He  placed 
his  arm  around  her  waist  and  a  passionate  triumph 
filled  him.  Empty.  They  were  safe. 

Motionless  within  his  grasp  she  stared  and  stared 
and  found  nothing.  Only  the  fountain  was  there,  a 
thin  spear  of  wavering  light,  and  the  f ritillaries,  rising 
like  ghosts  from  their  narrow  beds. 

"Are  you  satisfied?"  Bevis  repeated.  They  seemed 
measurelessly  alone  there  at  the  exorcised  window, 
alone,  after  the  menace,  as  they  had  never  been.  He 
held  her  closely  while  they  looked  out,  putting  his  other 
arm  around  her,  too,  as  if  for  final  security.  "  Will  you 
come  away  with  me  to-morrow?"  he  whispered. 

She  looked  at  him.  No;  it  was  not  triumph  yet. 
Her  eyes  were  empty;  but  of  him,  too.  They  showed 
him  only  a  blank  horror. 

"What  does  it  mean?"  she  said. 
[  91  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

Dropping  the  curtain  behind  them,  he  looked 
round  at  Miss  Latimer.  Had  she  just  moved  forward? 
Or  for  how  long  had  she  been  leaning  like  that  on  the 
table,  her  head  upon  her  arms? 

"It  means  her,"  he  said.  "She  read  your  fear;  she 
saw  it.  Have  you  had  enough  of  it,  Tony?  Have  you 
done  playing  with  madness?" 

"How  could  she  read  my  fear?  I  was  not  thinking 
of  it.  I  had  forgotten  it.  It  was  not  she.  It  came  from 
something  else."  She  was  shuddering  within  his  arms, 
and  her  eyes,  with  their  devouring  question,  were  on 
the  seated  figure. 

"No,  it  did  n't.  From  nothing  else  at  all.  It  came 
from  you  and  from  me  —  and  from  her;  all  of  us 
together.  It  was  some  power  in  her  that  conveyed  it 
to  our  senses." 

"You,  I,  and  she  —  and  something  else,"  said 
Antonia.  She  drew  away  from  him  and  went  toward 
the  fire,  but  so  unsteadily  that  she  had  to  pause  and 
lay  her  hand  on  a  chair  as  she  went.  At  the  table  she 
stopped.  Miss  Latimer  still  sat  fallen  forward  upon 
it.  Silently  Antonia  stood  looking  at  her. 
[  92  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"She's  asleep,  I  think,"  said  Bevis.  He  wished  that 
she  were  dead.  "It  has  exhausted  her." 

Antonia  put  out  her  hand  and  touched  her.  "It 
never  was  like  this  before.  —  Yes,"  she  said,  after 
a  pause,  "she  is  breathing  very  quietly.  She  must  be 
asleep.  And  I  will  go  now." 

She  moved  away  swiftly;  but,  striding  after  her, 
he  caught  her  at  the  door,  seizing  her  hand  on  the 
lock. 

"What  do  you  want?"  she  said,  stopping  still  and 
looking  at  him. 

He  said  nothing  for  a  moment.  "You  must  n't  be 
alone,"  he  then  answered. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  she  repeated,  and  she  con 
tinued  to  look  at  him  with  a  cold  gentleness.  "I  must 
be  alone." 

"I  must  come  with  you.  I  make  my  claim;  in  spite 
of  what  you  feel;  for  your  sake." 

Still  with  the  cold  gentleness,  she  shook  her  head. 
"You  don't  understand,"  she  said.  "You  couldn't 
say  that,  if  you  understood.  Good-night." 

When  she  had  closed  the  door  behind  her,  he  stood 
[  93  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

beside  it  for  a  long  moment,  wondering,  even  still,  if 
he  should  not  follow  her.  Then  he  remembered  Miss 
Latimer,  sleeping  there  —  or  was  she  sleeping?  — 
behind  him.  He  went  back  round  the  screen.  She  had 
not  stirred  and,  after  looking  at  her  for  a  moment, 
he  leaned  over  her,  as  Antonia  had  done,  and  listened. 
She  was  breathing  slowly  and  deeply,  but  now  he  felt 
sure  that  she  was  not  asleep.  The  pretence  was  a 
refuge  she  had  taken  against  revelations  overpower 
ing  to  her  as  well  as  to  Antonia.  She  was  not  asleep, 
and  should  he  leave  her  alone  in  the  now  haunted 
room? 

Restless,  questioning,  he  limped  up  and  down; 
and,  going  again  to  the  window,  he  drew  the  curtain 
and  again  looked  out.  Nothing.  Of  course  nothing. 
Only  the  fountain  and  the  white  fritillaries,  strange, 
ghostly,  pallid,  and  brooding.  Well,  they  would  get 
through  the  night.  To-morrow  should  be  the  end  of 
it.  He  promised  himself,  as  he  turned  away,  that 
Antonia  should  come  with  him  to-morrow. 


VI 

HE  heard,  as  he  waked  next  morning,  that  it 
was  heavily  raining.  When  he  looked  out, 
the  trees  stood  still  in  grey  sheets  of  straightly  falling 
rain.  There  was  no  wind. 

The  mournful,  obliterated  scene  did  not  oppress 
him.  The  weather  was  all  to  the  good,  he  thought. 
He  had  always  liked  a  rainy  day  in  the  country;  and 
ghosts  don't  walk  in  the  rain.  If  Malcolm  had  n't 
come  in  the  moonlight,  he  would  n't  come  now.  He 
felt  sunken,  exhausted,  and  rather  sick;  yet  his  spirits 
were  not  bad.  He  was  fit  for  the  encounter  with 
Antonia. 

When  he  went  down  to  the  dark  dining-room, 
darker  than  ever  to-day,  he  found  only  one  place  laid. 
The  maid  told  him  that  both  the  ladies  were  break 
fasting  in  their  rooms.  This  was  unexpected  and  dis 
concerting.  But  he  made  the  best  of  it,  and  drank 
his  coffee  and  ate  kedgeree  and  toast  with  not  too 
bad  an  appetite.  A  little  coal  fire  had  been  lighted  in 
f  95  1 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

the  library,  and  he  went  in  there  after  breakfast  and 
read  the  papers  and  wrote  some  letters,  and  the 
morning  passed  not  too  heavily.  But,  at  luncheon- 
time,  his  heart  sank,  almost  to  the  qualm  of  the 
night  before,  when  he  found  still  only  one  place  laid. 
After  half  an  hour  of  indecision  over  his  cigarette, 
he  wrote  a  note  and  sent  it  up  to  Antonia. 

"Dearest  Tony,  You  don't  want  to  drive  me  away, 
I  suppose?  Because  I  don't  intend  to  go.  When  am  I 
to  see  you?  I  hope  you  are  n't  unwell?  Yours  ever, 
BEVIS." 

The  answer  was  brought  with  the  smallest  de 
lay. 

"Dearest  Bevis,  I  'm  not  ill,  only  so  dreadfully  tired. 
Cicely  will  give  you  your  tea  and  dine  with  you.  I 
will  see  you  to-morrow.  Yours  ever,  TONY." 

This  consoled  him  much,  though  not  altogether. 
And  the  handwriting  puzzled  him.  He  had  never 
seen  Tony  write  like  that  before.  He  could  infer  from 
the  slant  of  the  letters  that  she  had  written  in  bed; 
but  it  was  in  a  hand  cramped  and  controlled,  as 
though  with  surely  unnecessary  thought  and  effort. 
[  96  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

He  was  horridly  lonely  all  the  afternoon. 

Tea  was  brought  into  the  library  and  with  it  came 
Miss  Latimer.  She  wore  rain-dashed  tweeds  and 
under  her  battered  black  felt  hat  her  hair  was 
beaded  with  rain.  At  once  he  saw  that  she  was 
altered.  It  was  not  that  she  was  more  pale  than  usual; 
less  pale,  indeed,  for  she  had  a  spot  of  colour  on 
each  cheek,  but,  as  if  her  being  had  gathered  itself 
together,  for  some  emergency,  about  its  irreducible 
core  of  flame,  she  showed,  to  his  new  perception  of 
her,  an  aspect  at  once  ashen  and  feverish;  and  even 
though  in  her  entrance  she  was  composed,  if  that 
were  possible,  beyond  her  wont,  his  subtle  sense  of 
change  detected  in  her  self-mastery  something  des 
perate  and  distraught. 

She  did  not  look  at  him  as  she  went  to  the  tea- 
table,  drawing  off  her  wet  gloves.  The  table  had  been 
placed  before  the  fire,  and  Bevis,  who  had  risen  on 
her  entrance,  dropped  again  into  his  seat,  the  ca 
pacious  leather  divan  set  at  right  angles  to  the 
hearth,  its  back  to  the  window.  Miss  Latimer,  thus, 
facing  him  across  the  table  as  she  measured  out  the 
[  97  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

tea,  was  illuminated  by  such  dying  light  as  the 
sombre  evening  still  afforded. 

They  had  murmured  a  conventional  greeting  and 
he  now  asked  her  if  she'd  been  out  walking  in  this 
bad  weather.  It  was  some  relief  to  see  that  she  had 
not  been  with  Tony  the  whole  day  through. 

"Only  down  to  the  village/'  she  said.  "There  is  a 
woman  ill  there." 

He  went  on  politely  to  enquire  if  she  were  n't 
very  wet  and  would  not  rather  change  before  tea 
—  he  wouldn't  mind  waiting  a  bit;  but  she  said, 
seating  herself  and  pouring  on  the  boiling  water, 
that  she  was  used  to  being  wet  and  did  not  no 
tice  it. 

He  was  determined  not  to  speak  of  Antonia  and  to 
ask  no  questions.  To  ask  questions  would  be  to  recog 
nize  the  new  bond  between  her  and  Antonia,  But, 
unasked,  emphasizing  to  his  raw  consciousness  his 
own  exclusion,  she  said:  "Antonia  is  so  sorry  to 
leave  you  alone  like  this.  She  had  one  of  her  bad 
nights  and  thought  a  complete  rest  would  do  her 
good." 

[  98] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

He  reflected  that  it  was  more  dignified  to  show 
strength  by  generosity  and  to  play  into  her  hands. 
"Does  she  have  bad  nights?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  very.  Did  n't  you  know? "  said  Miss  Latimer. 
"She's  obliged  to  take  things." 

"Drugs,  do  you  mean?"  He  had  not  known  at  all. 
"That's  very  bad  for  her." 

"Very  bad.  But  her  doctor  allows  it  apparently." 
"She  took  one  last  night  and  it  did  no  good?" 
"None  at  all.  I  hope  she  is  getting  a  little  sleep  now. 
Sugar?"  Miss  Latimer  poised  a  lump  before  him  in 
the  tongs  and,  on  his  assent,  dropped  it  into  his  cup. 
Could  two  creatures  have  looked  more  cosy,  shut,  for 
the  blind-man's-holiday  hour,  into  the  tranquil  in 
timacy  of  the  studious  room,  with  the  even  glow  of 
its  tended  fire,  the  cheer  of  its  humming  kettle,  the 
scented  promise  of  its  tea-table?  She  passed  him 
toasted  scones  from  the  hot- water-basin  and  offered 
home-made  jam.  He  wanted  no  jam,  but  he  found 
himself  quite  hungry,  absurdly  so,  he  thought,  until 
he  remembered  that  he  had  really  eaten  no  lunch.  He 
was  coming,  now  that  the  opening  had  been  made, 
[  99  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

and  while  he  ate  his  scone,  to  a  new  decision.  It  was 
the  moment,  and  perhaps  the  only  one  he  would 
have,  for  finding  out  just  how  much  she  counted 
against  him.  He  determined,  if  it  were  necessary,  on 
open  warfare. 

"I  don't  think  Wyndwards  suits  Tony,"  he  said. 

"Don't  you?"  Miss  Latimer  returned,  but  quite 
without  impertinence.  "She's  always  been  very  well 
here  before." 

"Before  what?" 

"Her  husband's  death,"  Miss  Latimer  replied. 

"Yes,"  said  Bevis,  disconcerted.  "Well,  it's  that, 
perhaps." 

"It  is  that  undoubtedly,"  said  Miss  Latimer.  Her 
voice,  high  and  piping,  was  as  dry  and  emotionless  as 
her  horrid  little  hands.  What  control  it  showed  that 
it  should  be  so!  He  felt  that  he  hated  her;  hated  her 
the  more  that  she  was  not  wishing  to  score  off  him  as 
he  wished  to  score  off  her.  Yet  he  did  not  dislike  her, 
if  one  could  draw  that  distinction.  And  now  he 
noticed,  as  she  lifted  her  cup,  that  her  hand  trembled, 
as  if  with  the  slight,  incessant  shaking  of  palsy.  The 
[  100  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

fear  of  an  emergency  burned  in  her.  He  felt  sure  that 
she,  too,  had  not  slept. 

"Well,  it  all  comes  to  the  same  thing,  does  n't  it?  " 
he  said.  "Since  Malcolm's  death  the  place  oppresses 
her.  Quite  naturally;  and  it  would  be  much  better 
that  she  should  leave  it;  as  soon  as  possible." 

"I  don't  think  it  would  do  Antonia  any  good  to 
leave  Wyndwards,"  said  Miss  La  timer,  not  looking 
at  him. 

"You  think  it  would  do  her  good  if  I  did,  I  imag 
ine,"  Bevis  commented,  with  his  dry  laugh.  "Thanks 
awfully." 

She  sat  silent. 

"You  saw,  of  course,  last  night,  how  it  was  with 
us,"  he  said.  "Perhaps  you  saw  it  before." 

Still  she  was  silent,  and  for  so  long  that  he  thought 
she  might  not  be  going  to  answer  him.  But  she  re 
plied  at  last.  "No;  not  before.  I  did  not  suspect  it 
before." 

Ah!  He  had  an  inner  triumph.  She  had  n't  had  her 
head  down  all  the  time;  he  was  sure  of  it  now.  She 
had,  when  they  went  to  the  window,  watched  them. 

[  101  ] 


T.HE   THIRD    WINDOW 

He  did  not  quite  know  why  this  certainty  should 
give  him  the  sense  of  triumph;  unless  —  was  that  it? 
—  it  pointed  to  some  plotting  secret  instinct  in  her. 
"Yet  you  must  have  wondered  how  I  came  to  be 
here  —  so  intimately,"  he  said. 

"No;  I  did  not  wonder,"  said  Miss  Latimer.  "I 
know  that  young  women  nowadays  have  friendships 
like  that.  I  knew  that  you  had  been  Malcolm's 
friend." 

"You  did  not  see  that  it  was  more  than  friendship 
till  last  night?" 

She  paused,  but  only  for  a  moment.  "I  saw  that 
you  were  in  love  with  her  from  the  first." 

"But  only  last  night  saw  that  we  were  in  love 
with  each  other?" 

Again  she  did  not  reply.  Turning  her  head  slightly 
aside,  as  if  in  distaste  for  the  intimacies  he  forced 
upon  her,  she  took  up  the  tea-pot  and,  still  with  that 
slightly,  incessantly,  shaking  hand,  poured  herself 
out  a  second  cup  of  tea. 

He  would  not  pause  for  her  distaste.  "I  am  afraid 
you  dislike  it  very  much." 

[  102  1 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

To  this  she  replied,  "I  dislike  anything  that  makes 
Antonia  unhappy." 

He  owned  that  it  was  a  good  answer.  Leaning  back 
in  the  divan,  his  foot  crossed  over  his  knee,  his  hand 
holding  his  ankle,  he  contemplated  his  antagonist. 
"My  point  is  that  it  would  n't  make  her  unhappy  if 
she  came  away,"  he  took  up.  "If  she  came  away  and 
married  me  at  once.  It's  the  place  and  its  associa 
tions  that  have  got  upon  her  nerves.  —  How  much 
you  saw  last  night!" 

She  had  poured  out  the  cup  and  she  raised  it  auto 
matically  to  her  lips  while  he  spoke.  Then,  untasted, 
she  set  it  down,  and  then,  with  the  effect  of  a  pale, 
sudden  glare,  her  eyes  were  at  last  upon  him. 

"I  do  not  know  what  you  mean  by  nerves.  Antonia 
is  not  as  light  as  you  imagine,"  she  said.  "She  loved 
her  husband.  She  does  not  find  it  easy  to  forget  him 
here,  it  is  true;  but  I  do  not  think  she  would  find  it 
easy  if  she  left  his  home  with  another  man." 

"No  one  asks  her  to  forget  him,"  said  Bevis.  She 
could  not  drink  her  tea,  but  he  passed  his  cup,  bless 
ing  the  bland  ritual  that  made  soft,  sliding  links  in  an 
[  103  ] 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

encounter  all  harsh,  had  it  been  unaccompanied,  with 
the  embarrassment  of  their  antagonism.  "  May  I  have 
another  cup,  please?  "  There  was  a  malicious  satisfac 
tion,  too,  in  falling  back  upon  the  ritual  at  such  a 
moment.  "With  a  little  water?  —  I  cared  for  Mal 
colm.  I  have  no  intention  of  forgetting  him." 

Her  eyes  were  still  on  him,  and  distraction,  almost 
desperation,  was  working  in  her,  for,  though  she  took 
his  cup  as  automatically  as  she  had  lifted  her  own, 
though  she  proceeded  to  fill  it,  it  was,  he  noted  with 
an  amusement  that  almost  expressed  itself  in  a  laugh 
—  he  knew  that  he  was  capable  of  feeling  amuse 
ment  at  the  most  unlikely  times  and  places !  —  with 
the  boiling  water  only.  She  put  in  milk  and  sugar  and 
handed  it  to  him,  unconscious  of  the  absurdity. 

"I  did  not  mean  in  that  sense,"  she  said. 

"I  should  like  to  know  what  you  do  mean."  He 
drank  his  milk  and  water.  "I  should  like  to  know 
where  I  am  with  you.  Do  you  dislike  me?  Are  you  my 
enemy?  Or  is  it  merely  that  you  are  passionately 
opposed  to  remarriages?" 

She  rose  as  he  asked  his  questions  as  if  the  close- 
[  104  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

ness  of  his  pursuit  had  become  too  intolerable.  "I  do 
not  know  you.  How  could  I  be  your  enemy?  I  only 
dislike  you,  because  you  make  Antonia  unhappy." 

"Would  you  like  me  if  I  made  her  happy?" 

The  pale  glare  was  in  her  eyes  as  she  faced  him,  her 
hands  on  the  back  of  her  chair.  "You  can  never  make 
her  happy.  Never.  Never,"  she  repeated.  "You  can 
only  mean  unhappiness  to  her.  If  you  care  for  her,  if 
you  have  any  real  love  for  her,  you  will  go  away,  now, 
at  once,  and  leave  her  in  peace." 

"So  you  say.  So  you  think.  It's  a  matter  of  opin 
ion.  I  don't  agree  with  you.  I  don't  believe  it  would 
be  to  leave  her  in  peace.  You  forget  that  we  're  in  love 
with  each  other."  He,  too,  had  risen,  but  in  his  voice, 
as  he  opposed  her,  there  was  appeal  rather  than 
antagonism.  "Let  us  understand  each  other.  Is  it 
that  you  hate  so  much  the  idea  of  remarriages?  Do 
you  feel  them  to  be  infidelities?" 

She  had  turned  from  him,  but  she  paused  now  by 
the  door,  and  it  was  as  if,  arrested  by  the  appeal,  she 
was  willing  to  do  justice  to  his  mere  need  for  enlight 
enment.  "Not  if  people  care  more  for  some  one  else." 
[  105  ] 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

Care  more?  He  did  not  echo  her  phrase,  but  he 
meditated,  and  then,  courageously,  accepted  it.  "And 
if  they  can,  you  don't  hate  it?" 

At  that  she  just  glanced  at  him.  He  seemed  to  see 
the  caged  prisoner  pass  behind  his  bars  and  look  out 
in  passing;  and  he  saw  not  only  what  her  hate  could 
be,  but  the  dark  and  lonely  anguish  that  encom 
passed  her. 

"People  should  be  true  to  themselves,"  was  all  she 
said. 

When  she  was  gone,  Bevis,  characteristically,  went 
back  to  the  table  and  made  himself  a  proper  cup  of 
tea.  He  had  managed  to  make  tea  for  himself  and  a 
wounded  Tommy  when  he  had  lain,  with  his  shat 
tered  leg,  in  No  Man's  Land. 


VII 

MISS  LATIMER  did  not  come  to  dinner  and 
he  was  thankful  for  it,  though  there  was  little 
to  be  thankful  for,  he  felt,  as  he  sat  in  the  library 
afterwards  and  wondered  what  Tony  was  thinking  of 
there  in  the  darkness  above  him,  if  she  were  alone 
and  in  the  dark.  The  thought  that  she  was  not,  the 
thought  that  Miss  Latimer,  with  her  stone-curlew 
eyes  and  pallid,  brooding  face,  was  with  her  made 
him  restless.  He  could  not  read.  He  threw  his  book 
aside  and  stared  into  the  fire. 

Next  morning  the  rain  had  ceased  and  it  was  cold 
and  sunny.  He  found  Miss  Latimer  in  the  dining- 
room  when  he  went  down.  She  was  already  dressed 
for  going  out  and  had  started  her  breakfast.  "My 
poor  friend  in  the  village  is  dying,"  she  said,  "and 
has  asked  for  me.  I  have  a  message  to  you  from 
Antonia.  She  is  still  resting  this  morning,  but  will 
come  down  at  three,  if  you  will  be  in  the  library 
then." 

[107] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

Her  courteous  terseness  put  barriers  between  them; 
but  none  were  needed.  He  could  not  have  asked 
questions  or  appealed  this  morning.  He  imagined, 
though  he  had  looked  at  his  face  in  the  mirror  with 
unregarding  eyes,  that  he,  too,  was  perceptibly  aged, 
and  his  main  feeling  about  Miss  Latimer  was  that  she 
was  old  and  ugly  and  that  he  was  sick  of  her. 

After  breakfast  he  went  out  into  the  hard,  bright 
air. 

He  walked  about  the  grounds  and  found  himself 
looking  at  the  house  with  consciously  appraising 
eyes,  from  the  lawn,  from  the  ring-court,  from  the 
kitchen-garden.  It  was  a  solid,  tasteful,  graceful 
structure;  mild,  with  its  sunny  fagade  looking  to  the 
moors;  cheerful,  with  its  gable-ends;  but  as  he  had 
felt  it  at  the  first  he  felt  it  now  more  decisively  as 
empty  of  tradition  and  tenderness.  It  had  remained, 
too,  so  singularly  new;  perhaps  because,  in  its  ex 
posed  situation,  none  of  the  trees  carefully  disposed 
about  it  had  yet  grown  to  a  proportionate  height.  Yes, 
notwithstanding  the  passion  and  grief  now  burning 
within  its  walls,  it  was  impersonal,  unlovable;  and  it 
[  108  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

would  need  centuries,  in  spite  of  the  care  and  love 
lavished  upon  it,  to  gain  a  soul. 

He  knew,  as  he  walked,  that  he  was  taking  comfort 
from  these  reflections  and  was  vexed  that  he  should 
need  them.  He  had  completely  placed,  psychologi 
cally,  if  not  scientifically,  the  events  of  the  other 
evening,  and  it  was  not  necessary  that  he  should  be 
satisfied  that  Wyndwards  was  a  place  to  which  the 
supernatural  could  not  attach  itself.  Yet  that  desire, 
indubitably,  directed  his  wanderings,  and  he  could 
compute  its  power  by  the  strength  of  the  reluctance 
he  felt  for  visiting  the  flagged  garden  where,  if  any 
where,  the  element  he  thankfully  missed  might  lurk. 
But  when,  putting  an  ironic  compulsion  upon  him 
self,  he  had  entered  the  little  enclosure,  his  main  im 
pression,  as  before,  was  one  of  mere  beauty.  It  was 
the  only  corner  of  Wyndwards  that  had  achieved  in 
dividuality;  the  placing  of  the  fountain,  the  stone 
bench,  the  beds  among  the  flags,  was  a  pleasure  to 
the  eye.  And  like  a  harbinger  of  good  cheer,  he  heard, 
from  the  branches  of  the  budding  wood  beyond  the 
garden  wall,  the  wiry,  swinging  notes  of  a  chiff- 
[  109  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

chaff,  and  his  own  soul  as  well  as  the  flagged  garden 
seemed  exorcised  by  that  assured  and  reiterated 
gladness.  Ghosts,  in  a  world  where  chiff-chaffs  sang, 
were  irrelevancies,  even  if  they  walked.  And  they  did 
not  walk.  In  sunlight  as  in  moonlight  he  found  the 
flagged  garden  empty. 

He  sat  down  on  the  stone  bench  for  a  little  while 
and  watched  the  fountain  and  listened  to  the  chiff- 
chaff,  while  he  lighted  a  cigarette  and  told  himself 
that  the  day  was  pleasant.  With  reiteration  the 
bird's  monotonous  little  utterance  lost  its  special 
message  for  him  and  dropped  to  an  accompaniment 
to  thoughts  that,  if  unhaunted,  were  not  happy,  in 
spite  of  the  pleasant  day.  He  felt  that  he  hated  silent, 
sunny  Wyndwards.  He  cursed  the  impulse  that  had 
brought  Antonia  there,  and  him  after  her.  It  had 
seemed  at  the  time  the  most  natural  of  things  that 
his  young  widowed  friend  should  ask  him  to  pay  her 
a  spring  visit  in  her  new  home.  His  courtship  of 
her,  laconic,  implicit,  patient,  had  prolonged  itself 
through  the  dreary  London  winter  following  the 
Armistice,  and  springtime  on  the  moors  had  seemed 

[  no] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

full  of  promise  to  his  hopes.  Alas !  why  had  they  not 
stayed  in  safe,  dear,  dingy  London,  London  of  tubes 
and  shops  and  theatres,  of  people  and  clever  tea-  and 
dinner- tables?  There  one  lived  sanely  in  the  world  of 
the  normal  consciousness,  one's  personality  hedged 
round  by  activity  and  convention  from  the  vagrant 
and  disintegrating  influences  of  the  subliminal,  or  the 
subconscious,  whichever  it  might  have  been  that  had 
infernally  played  the  trick  of  the  other  evening.  He 
sat  there,  poking  with  his  stick  at  the  crevices  be 
tween  the  flags,  and  the  song  of  the  chiff-chaff  was 
his  only  comfort. 

Miss  Latimer  did  not  return  to  lunch,  and  he  was 
in  the  library  waiting  for  Tony  long  before  the  ap 
pointed  hour.  She  came  before  it  struck,  softly  and 
suddenly  entering,  turning  without  a  pause  to  close 
the  door  behind  her,  not  looking  at  him  as  she  went  to 
the  fire  and  leaned  there,  her  hand  upon  the  mantel 
piece.  She  was  dressed  in  black,  a  flowing  gown  with 
wide  sleeves  that  invested  her  with  an  unfamiliar, 
invalided  air;  but  her  hair  was  beautifully  wreathed 
and  she  wore  her  little  high-heeled  satin  shoes,  tying 

in 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

about  the  instep.  For  a  moment  she  stood  looking 
down  into  the  fire;  then,  as  she  raised  her  face,  he 
saw  the  change  in  her. 

"Why,  Tony,"  he  said  gently,  "you  look  very  ill." 

Her  eyes  only  met  his  for  a  moment  and,  instinc 
tively,  he  kept  the  distance  they  measured. 

"I'm  not  very  well,"  she  said.  "I  haven't  been 
able  to  sleep.  Not  for  these  two  nights." 

"Not  at  all?" 

"Not  at  all." 

"Don't  take  drugs,"  he  said  after  a  moment.  "Miss 
Latimer  tells  me  that  you  take  drugs.  I  did  n't  know 
it." 

"It's  very  seldom,"  she  said,  with  a  faint,  dep 
recatory  smile.  "I'm  very  careful." 

Still  he  felt  that  he  could  not  approach  her,  and  it 
was  with  a  sense  of  the  unmeet,  or  at  all  events  the 
irrelevant,  that  he  helplessly  fell  back  on  verbal 
intimacy.  "You  could,  I  am  sure,  sleep  in  the  train 
to-night;  with  me  to  look  after  you." 

She  said  nothing  to  this  for  a  moment,  but  then 
replied,  as  though  she  had  really  thought  it  over: 
[  112  1 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

"Not  to-night;  Cicely  won't  get  back  in  time.  Her 
poor  woman  is  dying;  she  could  n't  leave  her.  But 
to-morrow;  I  intend  to  go  to-morrow;  with  Cicely." 

"Leaving  me  here?"  he  enquired,  with  something 
of  his  own  dryness,  so  that,  again  with  the  faint,  de 
fensive  smile,  she  said:  "Oh  —  you  must  come  with 
us;  we  will  all  go  together;  as  far  as  London.  We  are 
going  down  to  Cornwall,  Bevis,  to  some  cousins  of 
Cicely's  near  Fowey." 

He  came  then,  after  a  little  silence,  and  leaned  at 
the  other  end  of  the  mantelpiece.  "  What 's  the  matter, 
Tony?"  he  asked.  He  had  not,  in  his  worst  imagin 
ings,  imagined  this.  She  had  never  before  spoken  as 
though  they  were,  definitely,  to  go  different  ways. 
And  she  stood  looking  down  into  the  fire  as  if  she 
could  not  meet  his  eyes.  "You  see,"  he  said,  but 
he  felt  it  to  be  useless,  "I  was  right  about  that 
wretched  table  business.  It 's  that  that  has  made  you 
ill." 

"Yes;  it's  because  of  that,"  she  said. 

"You  must  let  me  talk  to  you  about  it,"  he  went 
on.  "I  can  explain  it  all,  I  think." 
[  113  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"It  is  explained,"  she  said.  Her  voice  was  cold  and 
gentle,  cold,  it  seemed  to  him,  with  the  immensity  of 
some  blank  vastness  of  distance  that  divided  them. 
And  a  cold  presage  fell  upon  him,  of  what  he  could 
not  say;  or  would  not. 

"You  would  not  explain  it  as  I  would,"  he  said. 
"You  must  listen  to  me  and  not  to  Miss  Latimer." 

"It  is  all  explained,  Bevis,"  she  repeated.  "It  was 
true.  What  it  said  was  true." 

"How  do  you  mean,  true?"  he  asked,  and  he 
heard  the  presage  in  his  voice. 

"He  is  there,"  she  said,  and  now  he  knew  why  she 
was  far  from  him,  and  what  the  stillness  was  that 
wrapped  her  round.  "He  comes.  Cicely  has  seen  him. 
She  saw  him  there  that  night.  Beside  the  fountain." 

It  was,  he  saw  it  now,  what  he  had  expected,  and 
his  heart  stood  still  to  hear  it.  Then  he  said:  "You 
mean  that  she  tells  you  she  sees  him;  that  she  thinks 
she  sees  him;  since  he's  come  just  as  you  led  her  to 
expect  he  would,  and  just  where." 

She  shook  her  head  gently  and  her  downcast  face 
kept  its  curious,  considering  look.  "It  was  n't  I,  nor 
[  114  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

you,  nor  Cicely.  He  was  with  us.  We  could  see 
nothing,  you  and  I.  He  could  not  show  himself  to  us; 
we  had  put  ourselves  too  far  from  him.  But  when 
we  left  her  alone,  Cicely  went  to  the  window  and 
saw  him  standing  in  the  moonlight.  He  was  not 
looking  up  at  her,  but  down  at  the  fritillaries.  She 
and  he  planted  them  there  together,  before  we  were 
married.  And  all  the  while  she  looked,  he  stayed 
there,  not  moving  and  plainly  visible.  I  knew  it.  I 
knew  he  was  there  when  I  looked,  although  I  could 
see  nothing."  She  spoke  with  an  astonishing  and 
terrifying  calm. 

"And  she  came  at  once  and  told  you  this?  That 
night?" 

"Not  that  night.  She  went  down  into  the  garden. 
She  thought  he  might  speak  to  her.  But  he  was  gone. 
And  when  she  came  back  and  looked  from  the 
window,  he  was  gone.  No;  it  was  next  morning  she 
told  me.  She  tried  not  to  tell;  but  I  made  her." 

"Curious,"  said  Bevis  after  a  silence,  "that  she 
could  have  talked  to  me  yesterday  afternoon,  and 
given  me  my  tea,  as  if  all  this  had  never  happened." 
[  115  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

But  he  knew  as  he  spoke  that  it  had  not  been  so 
with  Miss  Latimer.  Something  had  happened;  he  had 
seen  it  when  she  was  with  him;  and  he  now  knew 
what  it  had  been. 

Gibes  and  scepticism  fell  as  idly  upon  Antonia  as 
faint  rain.  She  was  unaware  of  them.  "No;  she  would 
never  speak  to  you  about  it.  There  was  no  surprise 
in  it  for  her,  Bevis.  She  has  always  felt  him  there. 
When  we  went  to  the  window  she  thought  that  we 
should  surely  see  him,  and  when  we  did  not,  she  pre 
tended  to  sleep,  purposely,  so  that  we  should  go  and 
leave  her  to  look  out.  It  comforted  her  to  see  him.  It 
was  only  for  me  she  was  frightened." 

"Yes;  I  rather  suspected  that,"  he  muttered. 
"That  she  was  shamming.  I  didn't  want  to  leave 
her  there  alone." 

"You  couldn't  have  kept  her  from  him  always, 
Bevis,"  Antonia  said  gently.  "If  it  had  not  been 
then,  she  would  have  seen  him  last  night,  I  am  sure; 
because  I  am  sure  he  intended  her  to  see  him,  meant 
and  longed  for  it.  But  it  was  only  the  one  time.  Last 
night  he  was  not  there." 

[  116] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

He  left  the  fire  and  took  a  turn  or  two  up  and 
down  the  room.  His  thoughts  were  divided  against 
themselves.  Did  he  feel,  now,  when,  after  all,  the 
worst  had  happened,  less  fear,  or  more,  than  he  had 
felt?  Did  he  believe  that  Miss  Latimer  had  lied?  Did 
he  believe  Malcolm  had  appeared  to  her?  And  if 
Malcolm  had,  in  very  truth,  appeared,  did  it  make 
any  difference?  After  all,  what  difference  did  it  make? 

"Tony,"  he  said  presently,  and  really  in  a  tone  of 
ordinary  argument,  "you  say  it  was  only  for  you 
she  was  frightened.  What  frightened  her,  for  you?" 

She  thought  this  over  for  a  little  while.  "Was  n't 
it  natural?  "  she  said  at  last.  "She  knew  how  I  should 
feel  it." 

"In  what  way  feel  it?" 

"  She  knew  that  until  then  I  had  not  really  be 
lieved  him  still  existing,"  said  Antonia,  with  her 
cold,  downcast  face.  "Not  as  she  believed  it;  not 
even  as  you  did.  She  knew  what  it  must  mean." 

"That  when  you  really  believed,  it  must  part  us?" 

"Not  only  that.  Perhaps  that,  alone,  would  not 
have  parted  us.  But  that  he  should  come  back." 
[  117] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

Still  she  did  not  look  at  him,  and  he  continued  to 
limp  up  and  down,  his  eyes,  also,  downcast.  He,  too, 
was  seeing  Malcolm  standing  there,  beside  the  foun 
tain,  as  he  had  seen  him  when  first  Antonia  had  told 
him  of  her  fear.  He  had  visualized  her  thoughts  on 
that  first  day;  and  though,  while  they  sat  at  the 
table,  he  had  not  remembered  Tony's  fear,  it  had 
doubtless  been  its  doubled  image  that  had  printed 
itself  from  their  minds  upon  Miss  Latimer's  clair 
voyant  brain.  But  now,  seeing  his  dead  friend,  as  he 
always  thought  of  him,  the  whole  and  happy  crea 
ture,  a  painful  memory  suddenly  assailed  him, 
challenging  this  peaceful  picture  of  Malcolm's  ghost; 
and  he  was  aware,  as  it  came,  as  he  dwelt  on  it,  of  a 
stir  of  hope,  a  tightening  of  craft,  in  his  veins  and 
along  his  nerves.  Subtlety,  after  all,  might  serve 
better  than  flesh  and  blood.  This,  he  was  sure,  was  a 
memory  not  till  then  recalled  at  Wynd wards;  and  it 
might  strangely  help  him. 

"Tony,  how  was  Malcolm  dressed  when  she  saw 
him?"  he  asked. 

"In  his  uniform."  He  had  avoided  looking  at  her 

r  us  i 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

in  asking  his  question,  but  he  heard  from  her  voice 
that  she  suspected  nothing.  "As  he  must  have  been 
when  he  was  killed." 

As  he  must  have  been  when  he  was  killed.  Tony 
had  played  into  his  hands. 

"Bareheaded,  or  with  his  cap?'* 

She  did  not  answer  at  once,  and,  raising  his  eyes, 
he  saw  that  now  she  was  looking  at  him.  "Bare 
headed.  Yes,"  she  assented.  And  she  repeated,  "As 
he  was  when  he  was  killed,  Be  vis." 

"Did  he  look  pale?  —  unhappy?" 

"Very  calm,"  she  said. 

"Nothing  more?"  He  had  his  reasons;  but,  alas, 
she  had  hers. 

Her  eyes  dwelt  on  him  as  she  answered:  "Yes. 
Something  more.  Something  I  did  not  know.  Some 
thing  Cicely  did  not  know."  She  measured  what  he 
kept  from  her,  with  what  a  depth  of  melancholy, 
seeing  his  hope;  as  he,  abandoning  hope,  measured 
what  she  had,  till  then,  kept  from  him.  "They  told 
me  that  Malcolm  was  shot  through  the  heart,  Bevis. 
It  was  not  only  that.  I  don't  know  why  they  felt  it 
[  119  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

kinder  to  say  that.  They  told  you  the  truth.  There 
was  something  more.  You  do  know,"  she  said.  Her 
eyes  were  on  his  and  he  could  not  look  away,  though 
he  felt,  sickening  him,  that  a  dull  flush  crept  reveal- 
ingly  to  his  face. 

"I  know  what?'*  he  repeated,  stupidly. 

"How  he  was  killed.  That's  what  Cicely  saw." 

"She  got  it  from  my  mind,"  he  muttered,  while 
the  flush,  that  felt  like  an  exposure  of  guilt,  dyed 
his  face  and,  despite  his  words,  horror  settled  round 
his  heart.  "She's  a  clairvoyante.  She  got  the  khaki 
from  us  both  and  the  wound  in  the  head  from 
me." 

Now  her  eyes  dropped  from  him.  He  had  revealed 
nothing  to  her,  except  his  own  hope  of  escape.  He 
had  brought  further  evidence;  but  it  was  not  needed. 
She  was  a  creature  fixed  and  frozen  in  an  icy  block 
of  certainty. 

"A  wound  in  the  head,"  she  repeated.  "A  terrible 
wound.  That  was  what  Cicely  saw.  He  must  have 
died  at  once.  How  did  you  know,  Be  vis?  You  were 
not  with  him." 

[  120  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"Alan  Chichester  told  me,"  said  the  young  man 
hoarsely.  "The  other  was  true  too.  The  shot  in  the 
breast  would  have  been  enough  to  kill  him.  It  was 
instantaneous;  the  most  merciful  death.  And  he  was 
not  disfigured,  Tony." 

She  rested  pitying  eyes  upon  him.  She  pitied  him. 
"His  features  were  not  touched;  not  on  the  side  he 
turned  to  her,"  she  answered.  "But  Cicely  saw  that 
half  his  head  was  shot  away." 

His  busy  mind,  while  they  spoke,  was  nimbly 
darting  here  and  there  with  an  odd,  agile  avoidance 
of  certain  recognitions.  This  was  the  moment  of 
moments  in  which  to  show  no  fear.  And  his  mind 
was  not  afraid.  —  Clairvoyance;  clairvoyance;  it  re 
peated,  while  the  horror  clotted  round  his  heart.  As 
if  pushing  against  a  weight  he  forced  his  will  through 
the  horror  and  went  back  to  his  place  at  the  other 
end  of  the  mantelpiece;  and,  with  a  conscious  voli 
tion,  he  put  his  hand  on  hers  and  drew  it  from  the 
shelf.  "Tony  dear,"  he  said,  "come  sit  down.  Let  us 
talk  quietly."  —  Heaven  knew  they  had  been  quiet 
enough!  —  "Here;  let  me  keep  beside  you.  Don't 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

take  your  hand  away.  I  shan't  trouble  you.  Listen, 
dear.  Even  if  it  were  true,  even  if  Malcolm  came  — 
and  I  do  not  believe  he  comes  —  it  need  not  mean 
that  we  must  part." 

She  had  suffered  him  to  draw  her  down  beside  him 
on  the  leathern  divan  and,  as  she  felt  his  kindly  hand 
upon  her  and  heard  his  voice,  empty  of  all  but  an 
immense  gentleness,  tears,  for  the  first  time,  rose  to 
her  eyes.  Slowly  they  fell  down  her  cheeks  and  she 
sat  there,  mute,  and  let  them  fall. 

"Why  should  you  think  it  means  he  wants  to  part 
us?"  he  asked  in  a  gentle  and  exhausted  voice.  He 
asked,  for  he  must  still  try  to  save  himself  and  Tony; 
yet  he  knew  that  Miss  Latimer  had  indeed  done 
something  to  him;  or  that  Malcolm  had.  The  wraith 
of  that  inscrutability  hovered  between  him  and  Tony, 
and  in  clasping  her  would  he  not  always  clasp  its 
chill?  The  springs  of  ardour  in  his  heart  were  killed. 
Never  had  he  more  loved  and  never  less  desired 
her.  Poor,  poor  Tony.  How  could  she  live  without 
him?  And  wretched  he,  how  was  he  to  win  her  back 
from  this  antagonist? 

[  122  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

He  had  asked  his  question,  but  she  knew  his 
thoughts. 

"He  has  parted  us,  Bevis.  We  are  parted.  You 
know  it,  too." 

"I  don't!  I  don't!"  Holding  her  hand  he  looked 
down  at  it  while  his  heart  mocked  the  protestation. 
"I  don't  know  it.  Life  can  cover  this  misery.  We 
must  be  brave,  and  face  it  together." 

"It  can't  be  faced  together.  He  would  be  there, 
always.  Seeing  us." 

"We  want  him  to  be  there;  happy;  loving  you; 
loving  your  happiness." 

"It  is  not  like  that,  Bevis."  She  only  needed  to 
remind  him.  The  reality  before  them  mocked  his 
words.  "He  would  not  have  called  to  us  if  he  were 
happy.  He  would  not  have  appeared  to  Cicely.  He  is 
not  angry.  I  understand  it  all.  He  is  trying  to  get 
through,  but  it  is  not  because  he  is  angry.  It  is  be 
cause  he  feels  I  have  gone  from  him.  He  is  lonely, 
Bevis;  and  lost.  Like  the  curlew.  Like  the  poor,  for 
gotten  curlew." 

When  she  said  that,  something  seemed  to  break 
f  123  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

in  his  heart,  if  there  were  anything  left  to  break.  He 
sat  for  a  little  while,  still  looking  down  at  the  hand 
he  held,  the  piteous,  engulfed  hand.  But  it  was  a 
pity  not  only  for  her,  but  for  himself,  and,  unen- 
durably,  for  Malcolm,  in  that  vision  she  evoked, 
that  brought  the  slow  tears  to  his  eyes.  And  then 
thought  and  feeling  seemed  washed  away  from 
him  and  he  knew  only  that  he  had  laid  his  head 
upon  her  shoulder,  as  if  in  great  weariness,  and 
sobbed. 

"Oh,  my  darling!"  whispered  Tony.  She  put  her 
arms  around  him.  "Oh,  my  darling  Bevis.  I've 
broken  your  heart,  too.  Oh,  what  grief!  What 
misery!" 

She  had  never  spoken  to  him  like  that  before; 
never  clasped  him  to  her.  He  had  a  beautiful  feeling 
of  comfort  and  contentment,  even  while,  with  her, 
he  felt  the  waters  closing  over  their  heads. 

"Darling  Tony,"  he  said.  He  added  after  a  mo 
ment,  "My  heart's  not  broken  when  you  are  so 
lovely  to  me." 

Pressing  her  cheek  against  his  forehead,  kissing 
[124] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

him  tenderly,  she  held  him  as  a  mother  holds  her 
child.  "I'd  give  my  life  for  you,"  she  said.  "I'd  die 
to  make  you  happy." 

"Ah,  but  you  see,"  he  put  his  hand  up  to  her 
shoulder  so  that  he  should  feel  her  more  near,  "that 
would  n't  do  any  good.  You  must  stay  like  this  to 
make  me  happy." 

"If  I  could!  "she  breathed. 

They  sat  thus  for  a  long  time  and,  in  the  stillness, 
sweetness,  sorrow,  he  felt  that  it  was  he  and  Tony 
who  lay  drowned  in  each  other's  arms  at  the  bottom 
of  the  sea,  dead  and  peaceful,  and  Malcolm  who 
lived  and  roved  so  restlessly,  in  the  world  from  which 
they  were  mercifully  sunken.  They  were  the  innocent 
ghosts  and  he  the  baleful,  living  creature  haunting 
their  peace. 

"Don't  go.  Why  do  you  go?"  he  said,  almost  with 
terror,  as  Antonia's  arms  released  him.  She  had 
opened  her  eyes;  but  not  to  him.  Their  cold,  fixed 
grief  gazed  above  his  head.  And  the  faint,  depre 
catory  smile  flickered  about  her  mouth  as,  rising, 
she  said:  "I  must.  Cicely  will  soon  be  back.  And  I 
r  125  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

must  rest  again.  I  must  rest  for  to-morrow,  Bevis 
dear." 

"We  are  all  going  away  together?  You  will  really 
rest?" 

"All  going  away.  Yes;  I  will  rest."  Still  she  did  not 
look  at  him,  but  around  at  the  room.  "I  shall  never 
see  Wyndwards  again." 

"Forget  it,  Tony,  and  all  it's  meant.  That's  what 
I  am  going  to  do.  I  am  to  travel  with  you?" 

She  hesitated;  then,  "Of  course.  You  and  I  and 
Cicely,"  she  said. 

"And  I  may  see  you  in  London?  You'll  take  a  day 
or  two  there  before  going  on?" 

"A  day  or  two,  perhaps.  But  you  must  not  try  to 
see  me,  Bevis  dear."  He  had  risen,  still  keeping  her 
hand  as  he  went  with  her  to  the  door,  still  feeling 
himself  the  bereft  and  terrified  child  who  seeks  pre 
texts  so  that  its  mother  shall  not  leave  it.  And  he 
thought,  as  they  went  so  together,  that  their  lives 
were  strangely  overturned  since  this  could  be;  for 
until  now  Tony  had  been  his  child.  It  had  been  he 
who  had  sustained  and  comforted  Tony. 
[  126  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"Why  do  you  go?"  he  repeated.  "You  can  rest 
with  me  here:  not  saying  anything;  only  being  quiet, 
together." 

"No,  Be  vis  dear;  no."  She  shook  her  head  slowly, 
and  her  face  was  turned  away  from  him.  "We  must 
not  be  together  now." 

He  knew  that  it  was  what  she  must  say.  He  knew 
the  terror  in  her  heart.  He  saw  Malcolm,  mourning, 
unappeased,  between  them.  Yet,  summoning  his  will, 
summoning  the  claim  of  life  against  that  detested 
apparition,  expressing,  also,  the  sickness  of  his  heart 
as  he  saw  his  devastated  future,  "You  mustn't 
make  me  a  lonely  curlew,  too,"  he  said. 

He  was  sorry  for  the  words  as  soon  as  he  had  ut 
tered  them.  It  was  a  different  terror  they  struck  from 
her  sunken  face.  She  stood  for  a  moment  and  looked 
at  him  and  he  remembered  how  she  had  looked  the 
other  day  —  oh !  how  long  ago  it  seemed  —  when  he 
had  frightened  her  by  saying  he  might  get  over  her. 
But  it  was  not  his  child  who  looked  at  him  now.  "I 
have  broken  your  heart!  I  have  broken  your  heart, 
too!"  she  said. 

[  127] 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

"Far  from  it!"  he  declared.  And  he  tried  to  smile 
at  her.  "Wait  till  I  get  you  safely  to  London.  You'll 
see  how  it  will  revive ! " 

The  door  stood  open  between  them,  and  it  was 
not  his  child  who  looked  at  him,  answering  his  sally 
with  a  smile  as  difficult  as  his  own.  "Dear,  brave 
Be  vis,"  she  murmured. 

And,  as  she  turned  and  left  him,  he  saw  again  the 
love  that  had  cherished  him  so  tenderly,  faltering, 
helpless,  at  the  threshold  of  her  lips  and  eyes. 


VIII 

MISS  LATIMER  dined  with  him.  She  told  him 
that  the  poor  woman  had  died,  and  they 
talked  of  the  Peace  Conference.  Miss  Latimer  read 
her  papers  carefully  and  the  subject  floated  them 
until  dessert.  She  spoke  with  dry  scepticism  of  the 
League  of  Nations.  Her  outlook  was  narrow,  acute, 
and  practical.  As  they  rose  from  the  table  she  bade 
him  good-night. 

"Do  you  mind  giving  me  a  few  moments,  in  the 
library,  first?"  he  said.  "I  don't  suppose  we'll  have 
another  chance  for  a  talk.  You  and  Antonia  are  go 
ing  to  Cornwall,  I  hear." 

She  hesitated,  looking  across  at  him,  still  at  the 
table,  from  the  place  where  she  had  risen.  "Yes.  We 
are.  I  have  a  great  deal  to  do." 

"I  know.  But  our  train  is  not  early.  I  should  be 
very  much  obliged."  Under  the  compulsion  of  his 
courtesy  she  moved  before  him,  reluctantly,  to  the 
library. 

[  129  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"You  see"  —  Bevis  following,  closed  the  door 
behind  them  —  "a  great  deal  has  happened  to  me 
since  we  talked  yesterday.  I've  heard  of  things  I 
did  not  know  before.  They  have  changed  my  life  and 
Antonia's.  And  since  it's  owing  to  you  that  they've 
come,  I  think  you  '11  own  it  fair  that  I  should  ask  for 
a  little  more  enlightenment." 

His  heart  had  stayed  sunken  in  what  was  almost 
despair  since  Tony  had  left  him.  He  had  no  plan;  no 
hope.  It  was  in  a  dismal  sincerity  that  he  made  his 
request.  There  might  be  enlightenment.  If  there  were, 
only  she  could  give  it.  She  was  his  antagonist;  yet, 
unwillingly,  she  might  show  him  some  loophole  of 
escape. 

Reluctance  evidently  battled  in  her  with  what 
might  be  pride.  She  did  not  wish  to  show  reluctance. 
She  took  a  straight  chair  near  the  table  at  a  little 
distance  from  the  fire  and  sat  there  with  rather  the 
air  of  an  applicant  for  a  post,  willing,  coldly  and 
succinctly,  to  give  information. 

Bevis  limped  up  and  down  the  room. 

"Why  have  you  been  working  against  me?"  he 
f  130  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

said  at  last.  He  stopped  before  her.  "Or,  no;  I  don't 
mean  that.  Of  course  you  would  work  against  me. 
You  would  have  to.  But  why  have  n't  you  been 
straight  with  me?  Did  n't  you  owe  it  to  me  as  much 
as  to  Tony  to  tell  me  what  had  happened?" 

She  looked  back  coldly  at  him.  "I  have  not  worked 
against  you.  I  owe  you  nothing." 

"Not  even  when  what  happened  concerned  me  so 
closely?" 

"It  was  for  Antonia  to  tell  you  anything  that  con 
cerned  you."  She  paused  and  added,  in  a  lower  voice, 
"I  should  not  choose  to  speak  of  some  things  to  you." 

"I  see."  He  took  a  turn  or  two  away.  "Yes.  After 
all,  that 's  natural.  But  now  you  see  me  defeated  and 
cast  out.  So  perhaps  you'll  be  merely  merciful."  He 
stopped  again  and  scrutinized  her. 

Yes;  he  had  seen  in  her  face  yesterday  what  her 
hatred  could  be.  It  was  —  all  defeated  and  cast  out 
as  he  was  —  hatred  for  him  he  saw  now,  evident, 
palpable,  like  a  sword.  And  why  should  she  hate  him 
so  much?  Had  she  anything  to  fear?  Like  CEdipus 
before  the  Sphinx,  he  studied  her. 
I  131] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

"You  believe  that  you  saw  Malcolm  the  other 
night?"  She  had  not  told  him  that  she  would  be 
merciful,  yet,  apparently,  she  was  willing  to  give  in 
formation,  since  she  sat  there. 

Something  more  evidently  baleful  came  into  her 
eyes  as  she  answered,  "It  is  not  a  question  of  belief." 

"Of  course;  naturally.  What  I  mean  is  —  you  did 
see  him.  Well,  this  is  what  I  would  like  to  know.  Did 
you  see  him  when  you  sat  at  the  table  with  your  head 
down,  before  we  left  the  room?" 

The  question  —  he  had  not  meditated  it  —  it  had 
come  to  him  instinctively,  like  a  whisper  from  some 
unseen  friend  —  was  as  unexpected  to  her  as  it  had 
been  to  him.  She  had  expected,  no  doubt,  to  be  ques 
tioned  as  to  Malcolm's  dress,  attitude,  and  demean 
our.  She  kept  her  eyes  fixed;  but  a  tremor  knotted  her 
brows,  as  if  with  bewilderment. 

"As  I  sat  at  the  table?"  she  repeated.  "How  do 
you  mean?" 

He  did  not  take  his  eyes  off  her.  He  seemed  to  slide 
his  hand  along  a  sudden  clue  and  to  find  it  holding. 

"I  mean  the  vision  of  him  standing  beside  the 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

fountain.  Did  it  come  to  you  first  while  we  were  at 
the  window  seeing  nothing?" 

She  stared  at  him,  and  the  bewilderment  gained 
her  eyes.  "A  vision?  What  do  you  mean  by  a  vision? 
No.  It  was  when  you  had  gone.  It  was  when  I  went 
to  the  window  that  I  saw  him  standing  there."  Yet, 
even  as  she  spoke,  he  saw  that  she  was  thinking  with 
a  new  intensity. 

Something  had  been  gained.  Safety  required  him, 
at  the  moment,  not  to  examine  it  overmuch,  not  to 
arouse  her  craft.  "I  see,"  he  said,  as  if  assenting,  and 
again  he  turned  from  her  and  again  he  came  back, 
with  a  new  question.  "You  think  he  came  because  he 
is  suffering?  " 

She  had  looked  away  from  him  while  she  thought, 
and  as  her  eyes  turned  to  him  he  saw  the  new  edge  to 
their  hatred.  "Yes.  Suffering,"  she  said.  And  her  eyes 
added:  "Because  of  you." 

"You  told  Tony  he  was  suffering?" 

"I  answered  her  questions." 

"He  will  be  appeased  by  her  sacrifice  of  me?" 

She  paused  a  moment,  as  if  with  a  cold  irony  for 
[  133  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

his  grossness.  "It  is  her  heart  he  misses,"  she  then 
said. 

He  stood  across  the  table  from  her,  considering  her. 
For  the  first  time  he  seemed  to  see  in  full  clearness 
the  force  of  the  passion  that  moved  her.  Her  very 
being  was  centred  in  one  loyalty,  one  devotion.  She 
would,  he  felt  sure,  sacrifice  any  thing,  any  one,  to  it. 
He  considered  her  and  she  kept  her  cold,  ironic  face 
uplifted  to  his  scrutiny.  There  was  desecration,  he 
felt,  in  the  blow  his  mind  now  prepared.  Yet,  as  she 
was  merciless,  so  he,  too,  must  be.  "How  is  it  he  comes 
to  you  and  not  to  Tony?"  he  asked  her.  "How  is  it 
you  know  what  he  suffers?" 

Unsuspecting,  she  was  still  ready  to  deal  with  him, 
since  that  was  to  be  done  with  him.  "I  have  always 
been  like  that.  I  have  always  known  things  and  felt 
them,  and  sometimes  seen  them.  I  have  known  Mal 
colm  since  he  was  a  child.  There  is  nothing  he  has 
felt  that  I  have  not  known.  It  frightened  him,  some 
times,  to  find  that  I  had  known  everything.  —  The 
bond  is  not  broken." 

"No.  It  is  not.  But  do  you  see  what  I  am  going  to 
[134] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

tell  Antonia  to-morrow?  "  he  said,  not  stirring  as,  with 
his  folded  arms,  he  looked  across  at  her.  "That  such 
a  bond  as  that  sets  her  free.  It's  you  he  comes  for; 
you  he  misses.  Realities  take  their  place  after  death. 
Things  come  out.  He  did  n't  know  it  while  he  was 
alive.  You  were  too  near  for  him  to  know  it.  But  it 's 
you  who  are  his  mate.  You  are  the  creature  nearest 
to  him  in  the  universe." 

She  sat  still  for  a  moment  after  he  had  finished. 
Then  she  rose.  Her  little  face,  with  its  lighted  glare, 
was  almost  terrifying.  He  saw,  as  he  looked  at  her, 
that  he  had  committed  a  sacrilege,  yet  he  could  not 
regret  it. 

"You  know  you  lie,"  she  said.  —  It  had  been  a 
sacrilege,  yet  it  might  help  him  and  Tony,  for  now  all 
her  barriers  were  down.  —  "If  that  were  true  how 
could  I  wish  to  keep  her  for  him?  He  is  the  creature 
nearest  to  me  in  the  universe,  but  I  am  not  near  him. 
Never,  never,  never,"  said  Miss  Latimer;  and  her 
voice,  as  she  spoke,  piped  to  a  rising  wail.  "He  was 
fond  of  me;  never  more  than  fond,  and  Antonia  was 
the  only  woman  he  ever  loved.  I  was  with  him  in  it 
f  135  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

all.  I  helped  him  sometimes  to  answer  her  letters,  for 
she  frightened  him  with  her  cleverness,  and  he  was 
not  like  that;  he  was  not  clever  in  your  way.  And  he 
would  grow  confused.  Nothing  ever  brought  us  so 
near.  It  was  of  her  we  talked  that  last  night,  beside 
the  fountain,  in  the  flagged  garden.  It  was  then  he 
told  me  that  he  knew,  whatever  happened  to  him, 
that  he  and  Antonia  belonged  to  each  other  forever." 

It  was  the  truth,  absolute  and  irrefutable.  Yet, 
though  before  it,  and  her,  in  her  bared  agony,  he  knew 
himself  ashamed,  the  light  had  come  to  him  as  it 
blazed  from  her.  It  gave  him  all  he  needed.  He  was 
sure  now,  as  he  had  not  been  sure  before,  of  what 
was  not  the  truth.  Malcolm,  as  a  wraith,  a  menace, 
was  exorcised.  There  was  only  Miss  Latimer  to  deal 
with. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  said.  "I  was  wrong.  You 
convince  me.  But  there's  something  else."  She  had 
dropped  down  again  upon  her  chair  and  she  had  put 
up  her  hand  to  her  face,  and  so  she  sat  while  he  spoke 
to  her.  "You  see,  your  love  explains  everything,"  he 
said.  "I  mean,  everything  that  needs  explaining. 
[  136  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

Don't  think  I  speak  as  an  enemy.  It's  only  that  I 
understand  you  and  what  has  happened  to  you,  and 
to  us,  better  than  you  do  yourself.  You  are  so  sure  of 
your  fact  that  you  feel  yourself  justified  in  giving  it  to 
Antonia  in  a  symbol;  so,  as  you  say,  to  keep  her  for 
him.  You  are  sure  he  is  here;  you  are  sure  he  suffers; 
and  you  feel  it  right  to  tell  her  you  have  seen  him, 
to  save  her  from  herself,  as  you  would  see  it;  and 
from  me." 

Her  hand  had  dropped  and  the  face  she  showed  him 
was,  in  its  bewilderment,  in  its  desperation,  its  dis 
traction,  strangely  young;  like  the  face  of  a  child 
judged  by  some  standard  it  does  not  understand. 
"A  symbol?  What  do  you  mean  by  a  symbol?"  she 
asked,  and  her  voice  was  the  reedy,  piping  voice  of  a 
child. 

He  pressed  home  his  advantage.  "You  have  not 
seen  Malcolm.  You  believe  that  he  is  here  and  you 
believe  he  suffers.  But  you  have  not  seen  him.  On 
your  honour;  —  can  you  look  at  me  and  say,  on  your 
honour,  that  you  have  seen  him?" 

She  looked  at  him.  She  stared.  And  it  was  with  the 
[  137  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

eyes  of  the  desperate  child.  "How  could  I  not  have 
seen  him?  How  could  I  have  known?" 

"The  table  rapped  it  out  for  you,  because  you  are 
a  medium.  It's  a  mystery  that  such  things  should  be; 
but  you  say  yourself  that,  in  life,  your  mind  read 
Malcolm's.  In  the  same  way,  the  other  night,  it  read 
Tony's.  You  saw  what  she  saw.  Everything  is  open 
to  you." 

She  had  risen  and,  with  a  strange  gesture,  she  put 
her  hand  up  to  her  head.  "No — no.  It  was  more  than 
that.  It  was  more  than  that.  Antonia  did  not  know.  I 
did  not  know.  No  one  knew,  till  I  saw  it;  how  he 
died.  I  saw  him.  Half  his  head  was  shot  away." 

He  leaped  to  his  triumph.  "It  was  my  mind  that 
showed  you  that.  I  did  know.  I  did  know  how  he 
died.  You  read  my  mind  as  well  as  Tony's.  Our 
minds  built  up  the  picture  for  you." 

Her  hand  held  to  her  head  she  stared  at  him.  "It  is 
not  true !  Not  true !  You  say  so  now  when  I  have  told 
you." 

"Ask  Tony  if  it's  not  true.  I  told  her  what  you'd 
seen  before  she  told  me.  Miss  Latimer  —  I  appeal  to 
[  138  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

you.  Our  lives  hang  on  you.  Tell  me  the  truth  —  tell 
it  to  me  now,  and  to  Tony  to-night.  You  did  not  see 
him.  Not  what  we  mean  by  seeing.  Not  as  Tony  be 
lieves  you  saw.  You  had  your  inner  vision  while  you 
leaned  there  on  the  table,  and^it  convinced  you  of  the 
outer.  I've  shown  you  how  you  built  it  up.  Every 
detail  of  our  knowledge  was  revealed  to  you.  It 's  we 
who  created  Malcolm's  ghost." 

But  she  had  turned  away  from  him,  and  it  was  as  if 
in  desperate  flight,  blindly,  pushing  aside  the  chair 
against  which  she  stumbled,  still  with  her  hand  held 
as  though  to  Malcolm's  wound.  "Not  true!  Not 
true!"  she  cried,  and  she  flung  aside  the  hand  he 
held  out  to  arrest  her.  "He  is  here!  He  has  saved  her! 
I  saw  him!  Beside  the  fountain!" 


IX 

SHE  was  gone  and  he  need  not  pursue  her.  Her 
desperation  had  given  him  all  that  he  had 
hoped  for,  and  there  was  no  recantation,  no  avowal 
to  be  wrested  from  that  panic.  He  had  followed  her  to 
the  door  and  he  watched  her  mount  the  stairs,  run 
ning  as  she  went  and  without  one  backward  glance. 
And  when,  at  the  end  of  the  corridor  above,  he  heard 
her  door  shut,  he  still  stood  in  the  open  doorway,  his 
head  bent,  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  took,  it 
seemed  in  long  draughts  of  recovery,  full  possession  of 
his  almost  miraculous  escape. 

He  saw  the  suffocating,  vaultlike  darkness  where 
he  had  groped.  Since  Tony  had  gone  from  him  that 
afternoon,  the  clotting  horror  had  not  left  his  heart. 
It  had  been  a  vault;  tenebrous;  a  place  of  death.  Yet 
flesh  and  blood  had  not  come  to  his  help.  He  had 
forced  no  doors  and  beaten  down  no  walls.  Such 
doors  and  walls  did  not  yield  to  force.  It  had  been  his 
sensitiveness  to  reality  that  had  led  him  forth.  As, 
[  140  ] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

sitting  at  the  table  the  other  night,  he  had  seen  the 
shadow,  felt  the  scent  of  danger,  so  now  his  sensi 
tiveness  had  shown  him  in  the  darkness  something 
less  dark.  He  had  groped,  he  had  crept,  he  had  felt  his 
way,  from  his  intuition  that  Miss  Latimer  feared  him 
to  that  memory  of  her  form  fallen  forward  on  the  lit 
tle  table,  and  the  darkness  that  was  only  less  dark 
had  softly  expanded  to  a  pallor,  until,  suddenly, 
from  her  bewildered  eyes  and  passionate  negations, 
conviction  of  the  truth  had  flashed  upon  him.  It  had 
been  like  turning  the  corner  of  a  buttress  to  find  the 
aperture  that  led  out  to  pure,  clear,  starlit  air.  Of 
course,  of  course  —  how  clearly  now  the  light  was 
spread !  She  had  had  her  vision  of  Malcolm,  not  at  the 
third  window,  but  while  she  sat  there  at  the  table,  her 
head  bent  down  on  her  arms.  She  had  lied  only  in  say 
ing  that  it  had  been  objective.  He  and  Tony  had 
built  it  up  for  her. 

His  recovery  was  not  only  of  freedom;  he  entered 
again,  with  his  recognition  of  how  he  had  found  free 
dom,  into  possession  of  himself,  into  security  and  con 
fidence.  Flesh  and  blood  had  miserably  failed  him 
[  141  ] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

that  afternoon,  and  so  he  had  failed  Tony.  What 
most  had  choked  him  in  the  darkness  had  been  his 
self-contempt.  For  he  had  miserably,  horribly,  if 
pitifully  and  inevitably,  failed  her.  Her  fear  had 
cankered  his  will  and  frozen  his  heart,  and  he  had 
helped  to  fix  her  in  it.  Thank  God,  where  flesh  and 
blood  had  failed,  intelligence  and  intuition  had 
atoned.  He  was  not  worthless,  after  all.  He  had  saved 
himself  and  he  could  save  Tony. 

As  he  stood  there,  and  it  had  been  for  some  little 
time,  Thompson,  Tony's  maid,  came  down  the  stair 
case.  She  was  a  middle-aged  woman,  elegant  of  figure, 
with  a  gentle,  careworn  face,  and  he  had  always  felt 
her  friendly  to  his  hopes.  She  carried  a  pair  of  Tony's 
shoes  and  gaiters,  no  doubt  to  have  warmed  to-mor 
row  in  readiness  for  the  journey,  and,  not  having 
noticed  her  for  some  days,  he  saw  that  her  face  was 
paler,  more  careworn  than  it  had  been.  Tony  was  the 
sort  of  woman  who  would  rouse  devotion  in  her  maid. 
He  had  already  guessed  that  Thompson's  was  a 
romantic  devotion;  and  now,  their  eyes  meeting, 
something  passed  between  them,  so  that,  at  the  foot 
[  142 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

of  the  stairs,  Thompson  paused,  and  he,  glad  to  see 
her,  glad  to  question  her,  asked,  "How  is  Mrs.  Well- 
wood  to-night?" 

"I'm  afraid  she's  far  from  well,  sir,"  said  Thomp 
son,  and  her  kindly,  decorous  eyes  dwelt  on  him. 
"She  hasn't  been  herself  for  some  days.  But  she's 
gone  off  nicely  now  to  sleep." 

"Really?  She's  been  sleeping  so  badly,  I  hear." 
"  Yes,  sir,  very  badly.  But  I  made  her  take  a  little 
hot  milk,  for  she  would  eat  no  dinner,  and  that 
seemed  to  send  her  off  quite  soundly." 

"You  think  she's  fit  to  travel  to-morrow?" 
The  dwelling  of  Thompson's  eyes  at  this  became 
almost  urgent.  "Oh,  yes,  sir.  Oh,  it  will  be  the  best 
thing  for  her,  sir;  to  get  away.  It  does  n't  suit  her 
here  at  all.  It's  the  place  that  does  n't  suit  her.  She's 
quite  fit  to  travel;  but  I  hope  she  won't  go  as  far  as 
Cornwall,  sir.  It  would  be  much  better  if  she  stopped 
at  her  own  house  in  London.  Perhaps  you  could  say 
something  about  it  to  her,  sir.  Perhaps"  —  and  sus 
tained  by  what  she  saw  of  understanding  in  his  gaze 
she  passed  bravely  beyond  professional  reticence  — 
[143] 


THE    THIRD    WINDOW 

"it's  being  so  much  with  Miss  Cicely  that  isn't 
good  for  her.  It 's  not  cheering,  sir.  They  Ve  both  had 
such  great  sorrow.  It  would  be  much  better  if  she 
stayed  in  London  and  Miss  Cicely  went  on  to  Corn 
wall  alone.  Perhaps,  if  you  see  with  me,  sir,  you 
might  say  something  on  the  journey  to-morrow.  Any 
thing  you  could  say  would  have  weight  with  Mrs. 
Wellwood." 

Be  vis,  gazing  hard  at  her,  felt  that  he  loved  Thomp 
son.  She  seemed  to  embody  the  warmth  and  sanity 
of  the  new  life  for  which  he  was  to  save  Tony.  He  had 
even  the  impulse,  ridiculous  yet  so  strong  —  for  he 
was  young  and  had  not  been  happy  for  such  a  long 
time  —  to  put  his  arms  around  her  neck,  his  head  on 
her  shoulder,  and  tell  her  how  much  he  loved  Tony 
and  what  terrible  danger  they  had  been  in.  But,  of 
course,  she  understood;  understood  how  much  he 
loved  Tony  and  how  great  had  been  the  danger.  So 
all  that  he  said,  at  last,  was:  "Yes;  I  do  agree.  Yes; 
I'll  do  my  best.  Thanks  so  awfully." 

"I  do  so  wish  you  joy,  sir,"  Thompson  murmured. 

He  was  glad  that  she  had  said  that.  He  needed  to 
[  144  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

have  it  said  to  him.  Yet,  after  he  had  gone  upstairs, 
pausing  at  Tony's  door  to  make  sure  that,  as  Thomp 
son  had  said,  she  was  sleeping,  after  he  had  lighted 
his  candles  and  stood  there,  meditating,  in  his  room, 
alone  in  the  silent  house,  it  was  not  joy  he  felt.  Joy 
was  not  yet  achieved.  Tony's  enfranchisement,  he 
foresaw,  could  not  come  from  anything  he  might  say 
to  her.  Her  fear  could  never  again  infect  him;  but 
could  his  intuition  free  her?  He  would  have  only 
intuition  to  put  before  her,  and  Miss  Latimer  would 
be  there  with  her  lie  that  was  half  a  truth.  No;  it 
could  only  be  by  the  infection  of  his  security  and 
ardour  that  Tony  could  be  won  back  from  the  dark 
ness,  and  it  should  not  fail  her.  But,  until  it  had  won 
her,  he  could  feel  no  joy. 

His  room  was  at  the  other  end  of  the  corridor  from 
Tony's,  opposite  Miss  Latimer 's,  and  he  had  not 
closed  his  door  on  entering.  She  could  not  yet  be 
sleeping,  and  while  she  waked  he  would  not  sleep. 
Tony's  slumber  must  be  guarded.  Anything  was 
possible  with  Miss  Latimer.  She  might  go  in  to  Tony 
with  baleful  warnings,  warping  beforehand  his  ac- 
[  145  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

count  of  the  interview.  He  must  prevent  her  seeing 
Miss  Latimer  alone.  During  the  journey  that  would 
be  easy;  and  once  London  was  reached  he  had 
Thompson  to  reenforce  his  strategy.  They  would  go 
to  Tony's  house,  and  there  he  would  talk  to  her.  It 
would  be  in  Tony's  captivating  drawing-room,  with 
its  cushions  and  fire-screens,  its  scent  of  lemon- 
verbena  and  sandalwood.  Thompson  would  help 
him  in  it  all.  She  would  see  that  he  had  Tony  to 
himself. 

He  undressed  and  lay  down  with  a  book  and  read 
ing-candle,  keeping  his  door  ajar.  Then,  in  the  still 
ness,  he  became  aware  that  Miss  Latimer  was  weep 
ing.  Passionately  yet  monotonously  she  was  sobbing; 
a  strange  agony  of  grief,  with  none  of  the  plaints  and 
moans  of  self-pity.  Was  it  remorse,  he  wondered; 
despair  for  her  exposure,  or  baffled  fury  at  finding  her 
prey  escape  her,  and  Tony  to  be  restored  to  life  again? 
But  Miss  Latimer  would  never  feel  remorse;  would 
never  feel  herself  exposed.  And  Tony  was  not  her 
prey;  it  had  been  for  another  that  she  had  tracked 
her  down.  All,  all  had  been  done,  as  all  with  her  had 
[  146] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

always  been,  for  love  of  Malcolm.  And,  with  a  curi 
ous,  unwilling  pity,  lie  knew,  as  he  listened,  that  he 
did  not  believe  of  her  that  she  felt  herself  to  be  a  liar. 
Her  simplicity  had  been  unable  to  interpret  truly  the 
overwhelming  experience  that  had  befallen  her.  It 
had  been  as  genuine,  as  immediate  as  that  of  a  Jeanne 
d'Arc.  She  was  an  unsanctified  saint;  or,  rather,  a 
sibyl,  who  had  found  her  magic  inefficacious  and  who 
feared  the  menace  to  her  beloved  of  a  universe  deaf  to 
her  incantations. 

For  hours  she  must  have  wept. 

When,  at  last,  for  a  long  time,  silence  had  fallen, 
and  he  had  put  out  his  light,  he  could  not  have  slept 
had  he  wished  it.  It  was  his  last  night  in  the  hateful 
house  and  the  hours  seemed  heavy  with  significance. 
The  wailing  sobs,  though  silenced,  still  beat  an  under 
tone  to  his  thoughts,  thoughts  of  Malcolm,  his  dead 
friend,  now,  harmlessly,  the  immortal  spirit;  and 
thoughts  of  his  dear  Tony.  Not  till  yesterday,  when 
the  waters  had  closed  over  them,  had  he  known  the 
depths  of  his  love  for  Tony,  and  only  through  their 
anguish  had  the  depths  of  her  innocent,  tragically 
[  147  ] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

gentle  heart  been  revealed  to  him.  Yet,  while  he 
thought  of  her,  yearning  over  her,  in  her  childlike 
sleep,  with  love  unspeakable,  the  anguish  seemed  to 
hover  like  a  cloud  above  him,  and  Miss  Latimer's 
sobs  still  to  beat:  —  Dead.  —  Dead.  —  Dead. 


X 

THE  first  housemaids  were  already  stirring  when 
at  last  he  fell  into  a  heavy  sleep.  So  heavy  it 
was  that  it  seemed  long,  yet  only  a  few  hours  could 
have  gone  by  before  he  was  awakened  by  a  rapping 
at  his  half -open  door.  Even  as  he  drowsily  struggled 
forth  from  slumber,  he  was  aware  that  it  was  not  the 
knock  that  announced  hot  water  and  the  hour  of  rising. 

He  opened  his  eyes  and  saw  Thompson  standing 
in  the  doorway. 

Her  attitude  as  she  stood  there,  dark  and  narrow, 
with  her  flawlessly  neat  outline,  had  still  so  much  of 
professional  decorum  that,  for  a  moment,  it  veiled 
from  him  the  strangeness  of  her  face. 

"Oh,  sir,  could  you  come?  "  she  said.  And  then  he 
saw  that  her  face  was  strange. 

He  sprang  up  while  she  stood  outside.  There  was, 
he  knew  that,  no  time  for  his  leg,  though  he  seemed 
to  know  nothing  else,  and  he  threw  on  his  dressing- 
gown  and  took  up  his  crutches  while  Thompson 
f  149  1 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

waited  for  him.   But  when  he  went  out  to  her  she 
still  stood  there,  looking  at  him. 

"Is  Mrs.  Wellwood  ill?"  he  asked. 

"Oh,  sir,  she's  dead,"  said  Thompson. 

Then,  standing  in  the  corridor,  he  felt  himself  try 
ing  to  think.  It  was  like  the  moment  in  France  when 
his  leg  had  been  shattered  and  he  had  not  known 
whether  he  were  alive  or  dead.  But  this  was  worse. 
This  was  not  like  the  moment  in  France.  There  was 
only,  then,  himself.  He  could  not  think.  Thompson 
had  put  her  arm  under  his.  He  was  hanging  forward 
heavily  on  his  crutches. 

"Perhaps  you'd  better  go  back  to  bed,  till  a  little 
later,  sir.  Till  the  doctor  comes,"  she  said.  "It  was 
an  overdose  of  the  powder.  She's  sometimes  taken 
them  since  Mr.  Wellwood  was  killed.  And  she  must 
have  made  a  mistake.  It  must  have  been  a  mistake, 
must  n't  it,  sir?  She  had  everything  to  live  for." 
Thompson  broke  into  sobs.  "I've  just  found  her. 
Miss  Cicely  is  there.  She  sent  a  boy  for  the  doctor. 
But  it's  too  late.  You'd  only  think  her  sleeping, 
so  beautiful  she  is,  sir." 

[  150] 


THE   THIRD   WINDOW 

"Help  me,"  said  Bevis.  "I  must  come." 

The  curtains  had  been  drawn  in  Tony's  room  and 
the  morning  sunlight  fell  across  the  bed  where  she 
lay.  It  was  not  as  if  sleeping;  he  saw  that  at  the  first 
sight  of  her.  She  lay  on  her  back  and  her  head  was 
sunken  down  on  her  breast  as  though  with  a  dogged- 
ness  of  oblivion.  Still,  she  was  beautiful;  and  he 
noted,  his  heart  shattered  by  impotent  tenderness, 
the  dusky  mark  upon  her  eyelids,  like  the  freaking 
on  a  lovely  fruit. 

Miss  Latimer  sat  on  the  other  side  of  the  bed  with 
her  back  to  the  light.  Beside  her  stood  the  little  tray 
of  early  morning  tea  that  Thompson  had  brought  in 
and  set  down  on  the  table  near  her  mistress  before 
drawing  the  curtains. 

Thompson  helping  him,  he  reached  the  bed  and 
laid  hold  of  the  bedpost. 

"Yes.  I  can  manage.  Thank  you  so  much,"  he 
said  to  her. 

So  he  was  left,  confronting  Miss  Latimer;  and 
Tony  was  between  them. 

He  did  not  look  at  Miss  Latimer.  His  being  was 
[  151] 


THE    THIRD   WINDOW 

absorbed  in  contemplation  of  the  dead  woman.  With 
sickening  sorrow  he  reconstructed  the  moments  that 
had  led  her  to  this  act.  It  had  not  been  unintentional. 
He  remembered  her  still  look,  her  ineffable  gentle 
ness  of  the  day  before.  She  had  intended  then;  or,  if 
not  then,  the  grief  that  had  come  upon  them  both 
had  fixed  her  in  her  design. 

She  had  escaped.  She  had  taken  refuge  from  her 
self,  knowing  her  longing  heart  must  betray  her  did 
she  linger.  She  had  perhaps,  in  some  overwhelming 
scepticism,  taken  refuge,  in  what  she  craved  to  be 
unending  sleep,  from  the  haunting  figure  of  her 
husband.  Or  perhaps  it  had  been  in  atonement  to 
Malcolm  and  she  had  believed  herself  going  to  him. 
But  no;  but  no;  the  dull  hammer-stroke  of  conviction 
fell  again  and  again  upon  his  heart;  it  had  been  in 
despair  that  she  had  gone.  In  going  she  had  turned 
her  back  upon  her  joy. 

He  had  looked  a  long  time  when  a  consciousness 

of  something  unfitting  pressed  in  upon  his  drugged 

absorption.  Looking  up  from  Tony's  dear,  strange 

face,  he  saw  that  Miss  Latimer's  eyes  were  on  him 

[  152] 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

and  that  she  was  not  weeping.  Shrivelled,  shrunken 
as  she  appeared,  sitting  there,  her  hair  dishevelled, 
a  bright  Chinese  robe  wrapped  round  her,  there  was 
in  her  gaze  none  of  the  fear  or  the  bewilderment  of 
the  night  before.  It  saw  him,  and  its  cruel  radiance 
was  for  him;  yet  it  passed  beyond  him.  Free,  exult 
ant,  it  soared  above  him,  above  Tony,  like  a  bird 
rising  in  crystal  heights  of  air  at  daybreak.  His  mind 
fell  back,  blunted,  from  its  attempt  to  penetrate  her 
new  significance.  He  only  knew  that  she  did  not  weep 
for  Tony,  that  she  rejoiced  that  Tony  was  dead,  and 
an  emotionless  but  calculating  hatred  rose  in  him. 

"You  see  you've  killed  her,"  he  said.  "It  was  n't 
too  late  last  night.  If  you'd  gone  in  to  her  last  night, 
after  you  left  me,  you  could  have  saved  her." 

And  if  he,  last  night,  had  gone  in  to  Tony,  he  could 
have  saved  her.  He  thought  of  his  long  vigil.  During 
all  those  hours  that  he  had  guarded  her,  she  had 
been  sinking,  sinking  away  from  him.  He  remem 
bered  his  vision  of  her  piteous,  helpless  hands  lying 
on  the  table.  She  had  stretched  herself  upon  the 
darkness  and  it  had  sucked  her  down, 
f  153  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

Miss  Latimer's  radiant  gaze  was  upon  him;  but 
she  made  him  no  reply. 

"Curse  you!"  said  the  young  man.  "Curse  you!" 

She  saw  him,  but  it  was  like  the  bird,  gazing  down 
from  its  height  at  the  outsoared  menace  of  a  half- 
vanished  earth.  And  her  voice  came  to  him  now  as  if 
from  those  crystal  distances. 

"No,"  she  said,  "Antonia  has  saved  herself.  You 
drove  her  to  it.  You  made  it  her  only  way." 

"You  drove  her  to  it,  you  cursed  liar!  I  could  have 
made  her  happy.  It  was  me  she  loved.  Yes,  take  that 
in,  more  than  she  loved  Malcolm.  Nothing  stood 
between  us  but  your  lies.  You  determined  and 
plotted  it,  when  the  weapon  was  put  into  your  hands 
by  our  folly.  You've  killed  her,  and  you  are  glad 
that  she  is  dead." 

She  did  not  pause  for  his  revilement.  Her  mind 
was  fixed  in  its  exultation.  "No;  it  was  Malcolm  she 
loved  more  dearly.  She  chose  between  you.  She  knew 
herself  too  weak  to  stay.  He  came  for  her  and  she 
has  gone  to  him.  He  has  forgiven  her.  The  husband 
and  the  wife  are  together." 

f  154  1 


THE   THIRD    WINDOW 

Bevis  leaned  his  head  against  the  bedpost  and 
closed  his  eyes.  The  idle  folly  of  his  fury  dropped 
from  him.  He  felt  only  a  sick  loathing  and  exhaus 
tion.  "Leave  me,"  he  muttered.  "You'll  not  grudge 
me  what  I  have  left.  Leave  me  with  her.  Never  let 
me  see  your  face  again." 

Almost  as  if  with  a  glad  docility,  drawing,  in  the 
spring  sunlight,  her  brilliant  robe  about  her,  Miss 
Latimer  rose,  and  her  face  kept  the  glitter  of  its 
supernatural  triumph.  She  obeyed  as  if  recognizing 
to  the  full  his  claim  upon  the  distenanted  form  lying 
there.  For  a  moment  only  she  paused  beside  the  bed 
and  looked  down  at  the  dead  woman,  and  he  seemed 
then,  dimly,  and  now  indifferently,  to  see  on  her  lips 
the  pitiless  smile  of  a  priest  above  a  sacrificial  victim. 

Then  the  rustle  of  her  robe  passed  round  the  room. 
The  door  closed  softly  behind  her,  and  he  was  alone 
with  all  that  was  left  him  of  Tony. 


THE  END 


fttectfibe 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .   S    .   A 


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IVlAi    31    1933 


20  1936 


NOV  29 


SEP    7    lk 


5  Jul'49AP 


IN  PORTAL 
31  J352 

4Feb52LU 


(939 


VB  39804 


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UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


